The Nexus of Assholery

Dan Gardner, the Media Party, and the Disintegration of Modern Journalism

2011-11-08T14:26:00.002-07:00

Some Nexus readers may recall a Byline segment from early October wherein Brian Lilley commented on a segment of Canadian journalism he refers to as "the media party".

In the segment, Lilley actually names a few journalists he considers to be members of the media party. Chief among them is "author, journalist and lecturer" Dan Gardner.

Last night, Gardner witnessed Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney refer to unreported crime in explaining and defending the Conservative government's omnibus crime bill. Garner couldn't hold back his objection -- nor, necessarily, should he -- and took to Twitter to voice his objection.

Gardner, who Tweets under @DGardner decided to respond to Kenney's comments by first selectively citing data from the study, then by dismissing unreported crime as "trivial":

Your not-so-humble scribe couldn't resist the opportunity to ask Gardner a few questions about the assumptions he was making. Gardner's ultimate response was that he ultimately would not consider any other data points:

In other words, Gardner refused to talk about any weaknesses in the assumptions he was offering, or even any other information. If it was going to be discussed, it would have to be discussed with other people, because he won't.

There's good reason for this. The survey as a whole says far more than Gardner says it does, and the data points he himself is offering don't necessarily support his claims about it.

There are obvious problems with a response that begins and ends with "not important enough", and it has to do with the respondent's perception of the meaning of that phrase. The question of who the incident in question is perceived to be "not important enough to" is a very real question.

To blithely assume that this means that the victim of the crime in general didn't consider it important enough to report is to also assume that all respondents perceived the meaning of that phrase in a uniform manner. This would be a mistake.

When a response begins and ends with "not important enough", it's every bit as likely that the respondent could conclude that the crime in question was not important enough to the police as not important enough to them personally. In lieu of a better-defined response, either conclusion is equally likely, and it's much more reasonable -- and responsible -- to allow for the probability that those who submitted that response had either of these in mind. Some likely concluded the former, and some likely concluded the latter.

Yet to ask Dan Gardner if the conclusion he reached -- that this response indicates that most of Canada's unreported crime is trivial -- is reasonable considering the ambiguous nature of this data is apparently to precipitate a meltdown on his behalf. If last night's events are any indication, he simply can't cope with that idea.

To ask him about the second-ranked response -- "police could not do anything about it" -- is apparently to make it worse. Gardner's response was that this was a worthy point to be discussed, but that he personally wouldn't. (That the second-ranked response trailed the first-ranked response by less than ten percentage points apparently did nothing to boost the worthiness of this data point in Gardner's eyes.)

It becomes difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that, in the canon of the far-left media, these are forbidden questions. "Does the data actually indicate what you're saying it does?" That question is forbidden. "Isn't the second-ranked response also worthy of consideration?" That question is also forbidden.

What seems to emerge, in Dan Gardner's case, is that of a man who has not embraced journalism as a means with which to provide people with information or even ideas. Rather, he's embraced the journalistic enterprise purely as a means of political advocacy. Nothing else.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that Gardner is simply a card-carrying member of the media party. The media party has an agenda, and in this case it's in preserving the soft-on-crime, hug-a-thug policies that they claim have reduced crime in Canada, but in reality have not. The Stats Can study itself states that in no uncertain terms -- victimization in Canada has remained stable.

In support of that agenda, Gardner sets out to turn public attention away from specific data points that do not support that agenda, and toward data points that seem to support it only if they go unexamined.

It's one thing to insist that Canadians aren't reporting specific crimes because they're "not important enough", whatever that might mean to the individuals who offered that response.

To insist that the unreported crimes are trivial is remarkably obtuse when one considers what those unreported crimes are:

Of the crimes unreported in Canada, the number one is break and enter. That is not a trivial crime. The second is motor vehicle or parts theft. That is not a trivial crime. The third is robbery. That is not a trivial crime. The fifth is physical assault. That is not a trivial crime.

The fourth was vandalism. That could be a trivial crime, but not necessarily. The sixth and seventh were theft, or personal property and household property respectively. That, too, could be a trivial crime, but not necessarily.

It's not up to Dan Gardner to decide if the unreported victimization of Canadians is trivial. It's up to each individual victim to decide that for themselves and admittedly, many of them might reach that conclusion. Many might not.

But this is how the media party operates: they assume that they speak for Canadians as a whole, then they pretend to.

In the end, Dan Gardner's impotent response to the questions he was asked was to label your not-so-humble scribe a "troll". Basically it amounts to an accusation that the questions over whether or not Gardner has given ample consideration to the meaning of the data points he offers is "inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic", as Wikipedia would have it.

The questions over whether or not Gardner is accurately interpreting the data offered by this survey are very clearly on-topic. It's simply a question that he considers forbidden: it's entirely reasonable to ask in the face of ambiguous data with a wide berth of potential meanings, but it seems to be Gardner's belief that no one is allowed to ask that question.

To this end, Dan Gardner is wrong. People have the right to ask these questions, and if Gardner, demanding merit in the public eye, refuses to discuss them, then it's he who has abandoned the lofty aspirations of journalism.

It's not what one would expect from a journalist. But it's precisely what one would expect from a member of the media party.

The Scandal Machine Backfires: Sask NDP Admits to Electioneering on Voting Day

2011-11-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

When the NDP issued this press release, one can imagine the reaction they hoped to elicit was one of outrage.

Instead, they've drawn attention to what seems like a potential violation of Elections law. The press release, which claims that Saskatchewan Party staffers, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Premier Brad Wall Terri Harris, was issued on November 7, 2011. It claimed that the staffers had been spotted removing NDP door-hangers mere moments after they had been placed:

"The Sask Party operatives were removing NDP literature which helped the senior renters know where and when to vote, and offering rides to voters in the bad weather.

'I think she’s seen me,' said Rogochewsky upon being spotted by NDP team members, who had already noticed that literature seemed to be disappearing from doorknobs minutes after it was placed there."

The problem for the NDP is obvious. It's illegal to campaign on election day, and if they're in a seniors' apartment complex anywhere in the province hanging partisan material on door knobs, they're in violation of the elections act.

Certainly, it's awfully nice of them to offer rides to seniors. They can quite easily do that without leaving partisan material behind.

Any Saskatchewan Party staffers encountering the NDP leaving such material behind are certainly not obligated to allow the NDP to break the rules to the Saskatchewan Party's disadvantage. This is, of course, presuming that what the NDP claims is happening at all.

Considering that the NDP were already lying to the people of Saskatchewan before the writ was even dropped, they'll need some evidence. There's no reason to simply take their word for it.

When Does a Single Interview Cancellation Constitute a Ban?

2011-11-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

The attention-hungry continue to falsely martyr themselves

There's no martyr like a self-made martyr. Over the last year, Canadians have seen far more self-made martyrs than anyone really needs.

Now Margie Gillis, Franke James and Brigette DePape have some strange company among them: Fog of War author Mark Bourrie.

According to Bourrie, he'd been scheduled to appear on Michael Coren's show on the Sun News Network. Later on, that interview was cancelled.

Quickly following the cancellation of his interview, Bourrie wrote a blog post for Ottawa magazine claiming he had been banned.

"Well, that’s it. I’m banned," Bourrie claimed. "I am lower than low, mere scrapings from the bottom of the dog walker’s boot. Yes, I’m not fit to be on the Sun News Network."

"My publicist booked me on Michael Coren’s show a couple of weeks ago. Last Wednesday, I got an e-mail saying the interview had been cancelled by Sun TV," Bourrie continued. "It wasn’t Coren or Coren’s producer who made the decision. Someone higher up had killed the booking and banned me from Sun TV."

The evidence Bourrie offers? Precisely none.

This author hasn't yet had access to Bourrie's book to give it a fair consideration of its merits. So your not-so-humble scribe won't automatically lump Mr Bourrie with mediocre self-made-martyrs like DePape, James or Gillis.

But Bourrie's martyrdom seems no less self-made.

Simply put, one interview cancellation does not a ban make. Bourrie's planned interview on Sun News could have been cancelled for any number of good reasons. Here's a very good one, and a very plausible one: perhaps the topic of episode on which Bourrie was scheduled to appear was changed.

This author doesn't know this to be the case. Nor does this author have any evidence to support it. However, under the evidence already offered -- Bourrie's complaint that his interview was cancelled -- this explanation is no more and no less plausible than Bourrie's.

The obvious difference is that Bourrie's explanation simultaneously lionizes himself while portraying himself as a victim. Bourrie's explanation unfortunately precludes any other possibility that doesn't require Sun News to be the bad guy of the story.

If Mark Bourrie wants to know what a real media ban looks like, this author has a story for him. Unfortunately for Bourrie, it doesn't make him out to be the martyr he seemingly wants to be so desperately, so he may not be interested.

LGR Advocates, You Have Some 'Splainin' To Do

2011-11-03T14:12:00.000-06:00

Long gun registry not the life-saver they claim it is

With Canada's far-left scrambling to save the long gun registry by any means necessary, it seems the facts just aren't lining up to support their arguments.

When the Globe and Mail put crime data recently released by Stats Canada into a chart, the conclusions became unavoidable. Those who claim the long gun registry saves lives -- as former Liberal MP Mark Holland used to delight in doing -- have some serious explaining to do.

The chart reveals that the last time more long guns than hand guns were used in homicides was waaaaaay back in 1990. (The L'Ecole Polytechnique massacre happened the previous year.) The bill authorizing the long gun registry was passed in Parliament in 1995, and the registry itself was established in 1996.

There's good reason for this. As the numbers have it, murders involving long guns have been steadily declining in Canada since 1984 -- twelve years before the LGR ever existed. There were occasional spikes in homicides involving long guns, but the general trend has been a decline since 1984.

During the same period of time, murders involving handguns -- which the law has required to be registered since World War Two -- have remained stable.

This is very clearly a difficult question the champions of the LGR desperately need to answer. They have relentlessly attributed the reduction in homicides involving long guns to the registry. Yet not only does the decline pre-date the registry, the handgun registry has no noticeable effect.

It's clear that registration has not had the magical properties LGR advocates have attributed to it. They have some serious questions to answer, some serious explaining to do -- although previous experience with these individuals suggests they will simply decline.

There Is Something Deeply Wrong With Some of These People...

2011-11-01T23:23:00.001-06:00

If you were to ask any of them to their face, the far-left in Canada are the champions of rainbows and puppydogs. Their leaders are all "inspirational", and their causes in the best interests of "99%".

But scratch the surface of some of these individuals, and what is left underneath is a complete lunatic. Stark, raving, mad. And brutish to the core.

For evidence one needs look no further than the individual who identifies himself as @HarrisAJackson. The "A" apparently stands for "Ace".

Okay then.

As it turns out, Ace is an advocate for the long gun registry. There's very little wrong with that, in and of itself. But how Ace deals with political defeat leaves a lot to be desired. He tweeted:

"Wonder how many hard core Cons will think deregulation of the long gun is a good idea, when they're [sic] son or daughter ends up dead? We can only hope its a conservative victim, since those with brains and national pride are fighting to keep it alive."

Ace subsequently insisted he didn't wish gun violence on anyone, but screencaps have the final say:

(Following several Tweets of this image directly to him, Ace still couldn't figure it out.)

Even while objecting that he hadn't wished gun violence on anyone, he literally couldn't stop. Couldn't help himself.

This issue has keenly focused the mania of individuals like our dear Ace. Irrational rage that would otherwise have thrashed helplessly across the Twitterverse is now brought to bear on this singular issue. For the first time, we can see just how disturbed these people are.

And Harris Ace Jackson is very disturbed indeed. The civilized approach to the issue of the long gun registry is -- whether one supports it or opposes it -- to wish for no gun violence. Ace has adopted a very different approach: he simply wishes the gun violence to be aimed at a very specific group of people.

It's sick. It's evil. It's reflective of someone crying out for help.

His LinkedIn profile identifies him as "Senior Analyst at UFO Investigator Citizen Reporter". He lives in the Vancouver area.

If you, or anyone you know, knows Harris Ace Jackson, reach out. Let him know about any mental health resources in his area, and urge him to seek help before he does something he may not be mentally healthy enough to regret.

Fuck It. Let Greece Burn

2011-11-01T13:38:00.001-06:00

Greek leftism becoming a global parasite

Imagine, if you will, a close cousin or younger brother who just can't seem to live within his means.

Once a year, every year, he comes with his hand out, begging for a not-insubstantial amount of money to sustain his grandiose lifestyle.

After several years of indulging them, hoping they'll get their shit together, you finally decide enough is enough. You tell him that you'll only help him if he stops going to the pub every night, and drinking himself into a stupor while his bills go unpaid.

Stunned by the ultimatum, he instead tells you that he'll have to take a referendum of his barfly buddies before he's willing to make that kind of a commitment. Bankrolled by your generosity, he frequently buys rounds for the bar. They like that. One thing firmly in his favour is that he has a guarantor for all his bills, and that someone else will ultimately be on the hook if they go unpaid. From his point of view, his worst case scenario is that you and his other creditors go unpaid.

Substitute Greece for the bum in question and you have precisely what happened in Greece today. After the European Union worked tirelessly to come up with a bail out package and a stabilization plan for the Greek economy, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou told the EU that he and the people of Greece will have to think about it.

The Socialist Party has already declared the deal "dead".

So it's time for the EU to take a different approach: kick Greece out of the Eurozone and the European Union, direct their bailout package toward cutting the losses of Greece's creditors while they foreclose on every debt-backed piece of property or capital in Greece.

Enough is enough. It's time to let the far-left parasites in Greece burn in the economic fire they started. Far-left socialism, as it's manifested itself in Greek politics, has become a cancer on the global economy. It's time to excise the tumour.

Don't Circle the Wagons Now, Jimmy... Redux

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

The longer the Occupy movement -- spawned by Occupy Wall Street, and imitated and co-opted by now-countless others -- goes on, the more necessary the comparisons between it and the Tea Party become.

It's on this note that the Occupy movement has now reached two key milestones that were used by far-left antagonists to condemn the Tea Party.

The first is the participation in an Arizona Occupation rally of JT Ready, an infamous Arizona neo-Nazi. He brought his militia, the Arizona Border Guard, to Occupy Phoenix rally. More frighteningly, they came armed with AR-15 assault rifles.

Desperate to mitigate the damage, some contemporaries of the Occupy movement attempted to describe Ready's participation as a "counter-protest". Ready himself, as well as the Arizona Border Guard made themselves clear: they were there to -- in their words -- "use their second-amendment rights to protect the first-amendment rights of Occupy Phoenix".

Once one has it directly from the horse's mouth, one quickly becomes relieved that most of the participants at the Occupy Phoenix rally asked Ready and his militia to leave. Some, however, attempted to "reach out" to Ready, feeling a sense of socialist-to-socialist solidarity with Ready.

One elderly woman present was reported to have remarked "I kind of like socialism."

Okay then.

The other incident also involves an armed individual, but fortunately does not involve Nazis. A man was spotted at Occupy Atlanta with an AK-47 assault rifle, which prompted the city to order to crowd to disperse.

Some may remember the infamy of racebaitgate, in which MSNBC selectively edited footage from a Phoenix Tea Party event in order to portray a black man with an AR-15 assault rifle as a white man bent on assassinating the President for racial reasons.

(Contessa Brewer has since been dismissed from MSNBC. Dylan Ratigan, sadly, remains.)

Some may also remember a ThinkProgress video which fabricated evidence of Tea Party racism. Among them was a man proudly extolling his devotion to Nazism.

When the source video was identified, it was revealed that the video was actually of this man being chased out of a Tea Party rally. Think Progress shamelessly stood by the video despite the extent to which it was discredited.

Now, no one should expect Occupy Phoenix to physically chase armed militiamen away from their rally. The reasons are obvious.

But the mixture of armed individuals and a movement that promises to occupy public space over the long-term -- permanently, if need be -- is an alarming development, and should be alarming even to the most devoted Occupation enthusiasts.

Simply put, what started out as a laudably-peaceful protest is now taking on the vestiges of an actual armed occupation.

This is where the input of the aforementioned Occupation enthusiasts becomes so necessary.

Jim Parrot -- who by now needs no further introduction around these parts -- is as dedicated an Occupation enthusiast as they come. He even renamed his blog "Occupy Let Freedom Rain" at one point, likely until he finally realized he had always occupied that space.

He also previously promised that he won't circle the wagons to protect his own when they are wrong.

Having so deeply embraced the Occupation movement, he has made it his own. Perhaps he'll have something to say about this.

His previous forays into not circling the wagons were less than successful. But perhaps he'll do better this time.

Maybe. Just maybe.

No Explanation Required... Unless You've Confused the Issue

2011-10-30T21:11:00.000-06:00

Religious belief that homosexuality is sinful not at odds with notion homosexuals shouldn't be bullied

The Toronto Star is reporting that Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale MP David Sweet is refusing to explain his participation in a recent "it gets better" YouTube video produced by John Baird.

This is as it should be. No explanation is required.

But for those obsessed with headhunting for Conservative MPs, Sweet's participation is as infuriating as Baird's. For a time, Baird was criticized for making the video while not being publicly fabulous enough. Baird refused to take the bait, so now the headhunters are on to their next target: David Sweet.

“For them to stand up and say, ‘It gets better, just hang in there kids,’ is so disrespectful and disingenuous and shows they’re out of touch with the community,” complained EGALE Canada executive director Helen Kennedy, who also complained the Tories aren't doing enough to satisfy the legislative demands of the LGBT community. “They actually have the power and authority and the responsibility to make it better. We’re talking about politicians who enact legislation, who bring in bills to the legislature, into the House of Commons to make a difference in everyone’s life and in particular in the case of our LGBT youth and the community in general and they’re not doing that.”

Of particular complaint has been Sweet's 2002 remarks that he believed homosexuality is a sin.

“Yes, absolutely,” Sweet agreed at the time. “We take the Scriptures as the word of God. We look at homosexual behaviour and say that’s not what’s prescribed in the Scripture.”

Some look at these comments, then look at Sweet's participation in an anti-bullying video, and suggest he has something to explain. They're absolutely wrong, on the most fundamental of logical pretenses.

Simply put, a religious belief that homosexuality is sinful -- a notion with which this author actually vociferously disagrees -- is not tantamount to a belief that homosexuals should be bullied. Nor is it at odds with a belief that homosexuals should not be bullied, because no one should be bullied.

The attitude adopted by those who believe Sweet has anything to explain seem to presume that Christians have some kind of moral duty to condemn anyone who sins on an existential basis. While some extreme religious sects seem to believe this to be the case, for the average Christian it isn't so.

Rather, Jesus Christ mandated that sinners are to be treated with compassion. So if one believes that homosexuality is sinful -- again, this author vehemently does not -- one's moral duty as a Christian is to offer them compassion and guidance.

Your not-so-humble scribe would posit that David Sweet is wrong about homosexuality. It doesn't disqualify him from speaking out against homophobic bullying, just as John Baird isn't disqualified for not being "out" enough.

If Helen Kennedy and her compatriots can't wrap their heads around that idea, that's their problem, not David Sweet's. Vis a vis his participation in the "it gets better" video, Sweet has nothing to explain, and so should explain nothing.

Canadian White Board: Still Making Up the Rules As They Go Along

2011-10-27T14:32:00.000-06:00

CWB determined to maintain its own power, no matter what

The farce perpetually surrounding the Canadian Wheat Board has reached an impressive new high in

"This Harper government has acted illegally and unethically in its attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board and it must be stopped," declared Canadian Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg. "We have no choice but to take this stand on behalf of farmers. We will not be intimidated by bullying tactics."

A Wheat Board chairman lecturing anyone on bullying is itself a spectacle in unintentional comedy. It was, after all, the Wheat Board that had farmers jailed for daring to demand the right to market their own grain. But what's most remarkable about this most recent episode is the extent to which the CWB is willing to go in order to make up the rules as it goes along.

In 2007, the Wheat Board won a challenge against an attempt by the federal government to remove the Board's monopoly on barley marketing by claiming that any change to the board had to made through an act of Parliament.

Now, the board is claiming that the changes can only be made following a plebiscite among grain farmers. A plebiscite not unlike, say, the one held in 2007 when farmers voted to eliminate the CWB's barley monopoly.

The CWB itself has already shown that it's opinion is that the results of any plebiscite don't matter, and that it could act however it pleased. Now that the government is poised to ignore the results of a plebiscite the CWB set up to support the maintenance its own tyrannical powers, it suddenly insists that the will of farmers must be respected.

In order to do this, they're willing to go back on the legal arguments they've already offered, and insist that it really should be left up to farmers. Unless farmers want something the board doesn't want. In which case, the will of farmers should be ignored.

The Wheat Board has already cast its die on this matter: they cast it in 2007. It's time for a Canadian court to stand up and finally make the CWB play by the rules as they are, not the rules it desperately wants to make up as it goes along.

If You Want to Do Better, Mr Lingenfelter, Apologize

2011-10-26T15:27:00.000-06:00

Lingenfelter pretends to shy away from negative campaigning

During the Saskatchewan leaders' debate last night, many people noted that there was a noticeable lack of some of the staples of political debates. The leaders seemed to entirely decline the talk over each other, and mostly stuck to promoting their own policy ideas to the people of Saskatchewan.

NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter insisted that, for his part, it's been a deliberate campaign tactic.

"I watched the Ontario election and less than 50 per cent of the people came out to vote," Lingenfelter said. "I think part of it was because of all the negativity — negative ads, personal attack ads. Maybe I can change that. I'm going to try."

Good. If Lingenfelter is going to try to be the politician who disavows negative campaigning, he can start by apologizing for the dishonest ad in which the NDP fabricated a quote by Premier Brad Wall.

His party eventually replaced the ad, but they've never apologized for it. They've accused the Saskatchewan Party of being "childish" in objecting to the ad, but they've never apologized.

So now Dwain Lingenfelter knows what he must do: apologize for his party producing a campaign ad that was a blatant lie, and promise to never do it again.

Occupy Toronto: Gross

2011-10-26T15:00:00.002-06:00

The Best Thing About Being Stubborn, Mary Walsh, Is That You Always Know What You'll Be Thinking Tomorrow

2011-10-26T14:50:00.000-06:00

Mary Walsh pretending she did nothing wrong

Apparently, the shock that she isn't funny -- or talented -- is too much for This Hour Has 22 Minutes "comedian" Mary Walsh.

In the wake of her invasion of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's privacy, frightening his six-year-old daughter, Walsh is refusing to admit that she's done anything wrong.

The best thing about being stubborn is that you know what you'll be thinking tomorrow. Apparently, what Walsh is thinking today is that she was trying to give Ford advice.

“He obviously was not going to listen to any advice I had ... or have anything to do with us whatsoever,” Walsh complained. (The detail that no one in their right mind would the advice of a tragically unfunny comedian is clearly one that has entirely evaded her.) “I’m a 60-year-old woman with a plastic sword. I was just going to give him a bit of friendly advice.”

If Walsh was really trying to offer him some friendly advice -- everyone who isn't entirely numb between the ears knows full well she wasn't -- she might have attempted to get in touch with him at City Hall. As she told Sun News' Joe Warmington, she didn't even try.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes producers explain that they asked Ford to appear on the program in August. He declined. So their decision was to ambush him at his home. Now they're stubbornly refusing to admit that they crossed the line.

When Walsh and the producers of 22 Minutes have become so disjointed that they can't keep their behaviour firmly on the rails, it's time to go. If they won't resign, it's time for CBC to fire them.

Jason Unruhe on Muammar al-Gadhafi's "Black Migrant Workers"

2011-10-25T13:55:00.000-06:00

From the man who brought you "the Cultural Revolution was just a big debate", comes this stupidity:

For the record, Unruhe is also cheering on Saif-Gadhafi, as he promises to win one back for the bad guys and bring his own unique brand of tyranny to Libya.

The CBC, Unhinged

2011-10-25T13:42:00.001-06:00

No laughs to be found when comedy comes second to politics

The CBC has a problem with its comedy. Or, rather, a new problem.

For a very long time, the biggest problem with CBC's comedy was that -- unless it was airing Just For Laughs -- the comedy mostly just wasn't funny. Rick Mercer would have the occasional moment, but the political sanctimony of what was passed off as comedy overwhelmed any sense of humour.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes has long been exhibit A in the sheer unfunniness of CBC's comedy offerings. The cast of 22 Minutes has long been made up of untalented hacks more interested in grinding their own political axes than in making the audience laugh. They could elicit the occasional giggle from left-wingers who found their offerings ideologically soothing, but very little from anyone whose political opinions veer even slightly to the right of a Phish concert.

(BTW, Phish sucks.)

Mary Walsh has pretty much set the bar for unfunny comedy on 22 Minutes, but in recent years she's had some competition from Geri Hall. Consider a Sun News Network parody featuring Margaret Atwood in which Hall and Atwood take token potshots at the fledgling news network and generally take turns at being incredibly unfunny.

Apparently "the home of real news spoken by fake blondes" is Hall's idea of a rolling-on-the-floor laugher. And while some cretins delighted in it, most rational people quickly tire of watching something that makes it clear that it's a malicious hit-piece cobbled together by far-lefty "comedians" who were outraged by a challenging interview that wasn't nearly as outrageous as they want to pretend it is.

That the CBC had previously employed Krista Erickson, the target of the comedy sketch-cum-smear, only further reveals just how unhinged the cast of 22 Minutes has become. In dumping so eagerly on a former CBC journalist -- one who served the CBC, although not without controversy, until she chose to go elsewhere -- is making an undeniable statement about the quality of journalism at the CBC.

They're evidently unafraid of dumping all over their own colleagues in order to direct their rage at a former colleague, now turned adversary by way of her employment at a rival network, one one which differing viewpoints have proliferated.

But just how unhinged has the cast and crew of 22 Minutes become? Just ask Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Cue the terminally-unfunny Mary Walsh once more. In staging an "ambush interview" for the show, Walsh wasn't interested in waiting for Ford at Toronto City Hall. No, instead she decided to ambush him in his driveway, as he was taking his 6 year-old daughter to school.

Walsh apparently frightened Ford's daughter, and to be frank: who wouldn't be? To behold Walsh, in the pitch of her demagogic fury, raving at the top of her lungs would frighten a lot of adults. Adults, fortunately, are well-equipped to deal with the appearance of a crazy lady on their drive way. Children, not so much.

What's become the most remarkable thing about the confrontation is just how much the 22 Minutes cast and crew just don't get it.

“We were actually surprised at how humourless his response was,” remarked 22 Minutes producer Michael Donovan.

Perhaps if Ezra Levant were to turn up on Donovan's driveway, waving around a plastic sword and shoving a microphone in Donovan's face while his children are present, Donovan would better understand.

Does It Get Better?

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

Maybe not... if you're John Baird

Following the suicide of yet another bullied gay teen -- it's been happening with heartbreaking frequency lately -- one would expect that LGBT activists in Canada would welcome Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird taking a stand to stop homophobic bullying.

Think again.

Baird responded to the suicide of Jamie Hubley in both a statement in the House of Commons and in a YouTube video produced as part of the "It Gets Better" campaign. In both cases, speaking out against homophobic bullying.

Many hardline LGBT activists haven't welcomed Baird's stand against this scourge of the LGBT community. Instead, they're angry that Baird would dare denounce homophobic bullying.

To various LGBT activists, Baird has a dirty little secret.

Except that it's not really dirty, and not really a secret. Really, they're just determined to denounce him no matter what. No matter what.

So in the wake of Baird's statement and video, self-described LGBT activists took to Twitter to denounce him as allegedly hypocritical for being an allegedly closeted gay man.

"Okay, I'm still livid," fumed Ariel Troster. "John Baird isn't even brave enough to come out and he's telling youth #itgetsbetter?"

"If it gets better then GET OUT OF THE F*CKING CLOSET JOHN BAIRD, YOU HYPOCRITICAL COWARD," raged @Kyle_A.

"If Min John Baird really wants to set a good example for Gay teens he should finally come out of the closet himself," declared @RustyBoyRobot.

It's a confusing response to such a laudable act by Baird, one that belies an odd autocratic attitude by some LGBT activists towards their own: simply, that they demand the right to dictate to John Baird how he will live his life.

To claim that Baird is "closeted" would overlook the fact that Baird's sexuality is common knowledge to many of those who follow Canadian politics. But although Baird has never been secretive about his sexuality, he has been quiet about it. There's a difference.

Baird prefers to live his private life in dignity as he sees it. That's not enough for some militant LGBT activists, who demand that he live his life as they see fit: as some kind of human billboard for the Canadian LGBT community.

Not only is it shameful, but it threatens the simple moral principle that motivates any conservative who supports equal rights -- equal meaning precisely that: equal -- that people have the right to live their lives in any law-abiding manner they choose.

Homosexuality, as serious-minded Canadians know, is not a choice. But how someone chooses to live as a homosexual is. Not every Canadian LGBT should be herded onto a gay pride float once a year if that isn't how they want to live their life.

If John Baird prefers to live his private life, well... privately, that's his right. It isn't for militant LGBT activists -- or anyone else -- to dictate to him that he should do otherwise.

The numerous individuals trying to politicize this issue and deny John Baird the credit he has earned for his laudable stand against homophobic bullying should all be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Lizzie May: Not in Favour of a Fair Distribution?

2011-10-20T16:42:00.000-06:00

Green Party leader pretends to be a target

With the NDP already pledged to oppose legislation to grant additional Parliamentary seats to Canada's fastest-growing provinces -- namely, Alberta, BC and Ontario -- it was only a matter of time before the rest of the opposition found a way to justify opposing the bill as well.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May seems to have found her pretext: as with so many things, the self-absorbed May considers the bill to be an attack on her, directly.

Waving around a Conservative Party newsletter in which Saanich-Gulf Islands Tory Bruce Hallsor notes that the re-distrubtion may make it easier for them to beat May in the next election.

May seems to think the newsletter is incriminating, but all she's offered is what is currently just idle speculation.

Of course, the detail that the Globe and Mail's projections are not based on any proposed re-districting -- no such proposals exist until independent commissions have done their work -- but only on votes cast in the past election will almost certainly be ignored by May.

In the end, it's purely intuitive: the party with the largest share of the vote in each of these provinces will reap the biggest reward. The Tories dominate in Alberta, are strong in BC, and swept Ontario in the 2011 election.

When one considers where the additional ridings need to be added to account for population growth -- in Northern Alberta, central BC, and suburban GTA -- it's not at all surprising that the strength of the Conservative vote in these areas would yield victories for Conservatives.

It's the just the way things are right now. If the work of these independent commissions concludes that the boundaries of Saanich-Gulf Islands should be redrawn, it's just the way it will be. To tailor the process just to suit May would be a dereliction of the commission's responsibilities: namely, to produce a re-distribution that is fair to all constituents, not just to May.

If Elizabeth May and the Green Party don't like it, perhaps they should campaign harder in those areas, and propose policy that will appeal to, as opposed to repulse, those voters.

NDP Response to Saskatchewan Party Ad "Childish"?

2011-10-20T08:00:00.000-06:00

Prior to the beginning of the 2011 Saskatchewan election, the NDP released an ad that featured a fabricated quote, portrayed as from Saskatchewan Party leader (and Premier) Brad Wall.

When challenged over the blatantly deceitful ad, NDP House Leader Kevin Yates dismissed the Saskatchewan Party's complaints over the ad as "childish".

Now, the Saskatchewan Party is running an ad the NDP insists is untrue.

The ad notes that Nexen, the oil company NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter worked for, moved its head office to Calgary, and insists Lingenfelter did it.

Then-Nexen CEO Charlie Fischer insists that Lingenfelter didn't make the decision to move Nexen's head office to Calgary. But as it turns out, Lingenfelter was still involved.

To move the Nexen head office to Calgary required repeal of the Wascana Act, which stipulated that the head office of the company had to remain located in Saskatchewan. Wascana Energy had formerly been known as SaskOil.

Lingenfelter lobbied Kindersley MLA Bill Boyd to support the repeal of the Wascana Act. (Boyd isn't clear on whether or not ne actually supported the repeal.)

Dwain Lingenfelter's involvement in the reloaction of Nexen's head office, however, is undeniable. The NDP's response to this ad is childish and over the top. After all, unlike the NDP, they didn't lie.

But We Mustn't Call it a Coalition...

2011-10-19T16:48:00.001-06:00

Nathan Cullen proposes "coalition lite"

With Nathan Cullen contesting the leadership of the NDP, it's as fair a question to answer as for any other candidate:

What, precisely, does Cullen have to offer?

As it turns out, the answer is "very little". To date, Cullen's offering in the leadership campaign is "beat Harper", and not much else. To whit, Cullen is recommending that the NDP run "joint candidates" to defeat Conservative candidates.0

Is it coalition lite? Or merger lite?

It doesn't seem to matter to Cullen. To him, it's the prefect way to pander to a wider variety of left-wing voters.

"I believe now is the time to respond to the call from people of all walks of life, who hate that Stephen Harper can change our country for the worse with support of less than four in 10 voters," Cullen declared. "For me, the greater cause is that the wedge politics of the Stephen Harper government are killing us. ... We need to find a way to speak past the narrow political interests of parties from time to time."

A very real question must persist over whether or not those same people liked it when Jean Chretien was able to govern Canada with the support of less than four in ten voters. It also seems necessary to remember that it was that same Chretien government that slashed healthcare and education funding.

Yet the NDP -- whose bread-and-butter issue is healthcare -- never pulled out all the stops to team with their fellow opposition parties to put a stop to that in 1997. Very curious.

Non-ironies aside, this is an idea that only could have come from the NDP at a time when they're ahead of the Liberal Party, both in seat count and in popular support. In this sense, Cullen is very opportunistic with an idea he very clearly hasn't thought through.

For example, with whose caucus would a joint candidate sit? The Liberal Caucus? The Green Party Caucus? The NDP caucus? As an independent?

The only way an idea like this can be said to even remotely work would be within a formal coalition -- and Canadians have already shown what they think of that. Even if Cullen hasn't learned his lesson in this regard, his fellow leadership candidates seem to -- they've all given the idea their staunch disapproval.

This, along with the detail that joint candidates would require participation from another party. The Liberal Party is practically guaranteed to refuse.

Cullen will almost certainly remain undeterred.

"I have no problem going up against Stephen Harper one on one," Cullen declared. "This just makes it a slam dunk."

Not many Conservatives would worry much about a Stephen Harper/Nathan Cullen match-up in a federal election. Cullen's half-baked ideas are nothing to worry about.

Desperation is Not the Answer

2011-10-17T15:31:00.001-06:00

NDP running on rent control in Saskatchewan

With his leadership already a disaster and an election already in progress, there's nothing Saskatchewan NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter can do but try to put an optimistic face on it.

Although he tried to fire his supporters up by forecasting an NDP victory in the 2011 election, Lingenfelter and the NDP are simply desperate.

They were desperate when they produced a campaign advertisement that fabricated an anti-labour quote by Premier Brad Wall. And they're desperate when they turn to rent control as a key campaign plank.

The party has pledged to throw $320 million at a housing strategy in Saskatchewan which will basically combine government-funded housing developments with rent control.

This is remarkable, when all they really have to do is leave the market alone to work; which is something that, for all its occasional frustration, is something that has always worked far better than government intervention.

As a policy, rent control has been destructive everywhere it's been implemented. It discourages property owners from offering housing units for rent, and discourages the construction of additional units. It produces a social loss.

Of course, with the levels of support in Saskatchewan being what they are, this isn't a policy the NDP has a prayer of ever being able to implement. It's simply desperate pandering to its own base, to the crowd who turned out for events such as Occupy Saskatoon.

By offering up a policy such as rent control, Lingenfelter has certainly boosted his chances of getting those people out to vote. But the average citizen of Saskatchewan, who are quite pleased with the job Wall has done as Premier, is the vote that Lingenfelter needs. He's just guaranteed he won't be able to get that vote.

If Dwain Lingenfelter really wanted to lead the NDP to victory in Saskatchewan, he would have dispensed with this policy as quickly as it was dreamed up. But Lingenfelter must, by now, know that he can't win this election.

He's simply embraced the politics of desperation, clearly did so long before this election, and should have resigned as NDP leader the second he did.

Herman Cain's AFP Association Sure to Set Off Koch-Obsessed Loonies

2011-10-17T15:02:00.000-06:00

Far-left lunatics certain to target Cain over Americans For Prosperity

Quite often, politics is a game of non-revelations as much as it is a game of revelations.

Such is the case with the recent non-revelation that Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain has had a long association with Americans For Prosperity, a political advocacy group that has enjoyed generous financial support from Charles and David Koch.

For the far-left the Koch brothers are the favourite political bogeymen, supporting various conservative political causes. That they are also billionaires makes them easy targets for those willing to overlook the extent to which George Soros -- also a billionaire -- generously financing various left-wing causes.

It's no great secret that Cain's candidacy as a Republican was sure to trigger the deepest racial ethos of the far-left. No lesser a far-left whacko luminary than Janeane Garofalo would publicly surmise that Cain was being paid to run for President. Perhaps now she'll be emboldened to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it's the Koch brothers allegedly paying him.

Certainly, it's a hilariously stupid suggestion on its face. But Garofalo has been both a reliable and shameless source of this kind of commentary.

This is the kind of thing that one can expect to see now that the Koch brothers cat is out of the bag.

Of course, Cain's long association with AFP has never been a secret. In 2005-06, Cain was involved in the AFP's Prosperity Expansion Project, travelling the United States to speak to fledgling AFP chapters.

Any suggestion that the AFP was simply a front for corporate greed, or a stidently pro-Republican organization would be quickly swept aside that AFP opposed the automaker bailout administered by George W Bush.

Details, details.

For those among the American far-left who draw every breath obsessed with the Koch brothers, nothing so mundane as facts will be enough to allay their hysteria.

But in the end, that will likely be as much an asset to Herman Cain. Cain's fundamentally rational approach to economics will only appear more rational next to the crazed fantasy-based ideas set forth by those who will rave incessantly about Cain's remote connection to the Koch brothers via Americans For Prosperity.

In an era where politics is quickly becoming about sorting out rational people from the crazies, the reaction by the anti-Koch left will only solidify Herman Cain's standing in the former camp, and the anti-Koch left's standing in the latter.

Don't Circle the Wagons Now, Jimmy

2011-10-17T14:35:00.001-06:00

In terms of online stupidity, Jim Parrot is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Apparently, Jymn has become so obsessed with the Occupation movement, that he renamed his blog Occupy Let Freedom Rain. (The detail that he already occupies it seems entirely lost on him.)

But in one of the most recent bouts between Jymn and unintentional hilarity, he's apparently taken deep umbrage with the efforts of a few conservative bloggers to draw attention to some anti-semitic behaviour among participants in the Occupation movement.

Some of that behaviour was captured on film by National Review Online.

If such undeniable evidence didn't exist, one could certainly assume that Jymn would simply claim there was no anti-semitism and move on. After all, he seems to be perfectly content to cling to his claims that "no violence was had" at the Dick Cheney protest in Vancouver, despite an assault on an employee of the venue at which Cheney was hosted.

Yet in a long and rambling post trying to explain the anti-Semitism away, Jymn simply recycles old discredited claims about the Tea Party, and even recycles the Tea Party's explanation for any racist behaviour at their rallies: that the racism came from a marginal minority. (Although he does indulge himself in pretending that the proportion of Tea Partiers indulging themselves in racism was much, much larger than it actually was.)

Midway through his incoherent ramblings, he seems to sense that he cannot actually explain the anti-semitism away, so he seems to decide to not even try:

"Should we be worried that anti-Semitism has popped up its ugly head amongst our message? Of course. It's deeply worrisome. That it would happen is not the problem - individual wackos turn up at every gathering, whether it is right or left.

The problem is that, and we don't know this, if we have not argued these exceptions to take down the signs, to take their hatred elsewhere. Perhaps that is what happened - we don't know. We just have right-wing publications - not the hallmark of honesty and fair play - to tell us their version. The bigger problem is that the media will sense blood and come prowling. This is going to get ugly."

Did the rest of the Occupy Wall Street movement ask the anti-Semites to leave, as Tea Partiers have with racists who turned up at their rallies? He admits he doesn't actually know. But apparently that isn't even a salient concern for Jim Parrot, as he seems to think the bigger concern is that the media might actually pay closer attention to the anti-Semitism at many of these Occupy rallies.

That is rather remarkable, when one considers this previous bit of sanctimonious tripe from pre-Occupy Let Freedom Rain:

"I will not circle the wagons to protect my own when they are wrong. I am a blogger. I am not a journalist."

Jim Parrot has very clearly taken the Occupation movement as his own. He's so enthralled with it that he's renamed his blog after it. (It's actually quite natural that someone with a tendency to repeat whatever he's told to say would take so keenly to a movement founded on repeating what other people say.)

Yet when other adherents to the Occupation movement are caught publicly voicing their anti-Semitism, what does Jim Parrot do? Precisely what he claimed he would not: he circled the wagons.

No one should be particularly surprised: it's precisely what Jim Parrot and his cohorts have always done. There's no reason to expect that they would have done any differently, or that they ever will.

This Is Sure to Infuriate the Pro-Abortion Lobby

2011-10-15T15:15:00.000-06:00

Rabble contributor admits abortion debate is alive, if not necessarily well

Rabble contributor Mercedes Allen is officially off the reservation.

Pro-abortion activists in Canada have long insisted that there is no debate on abortion in Canada -- your not-so-humble scribe was once threatened with gun violence for merely pointing out that there is. Many pro-abortion activists have long operated under a mistaken belief that, if they simply refused to discuss the abortion topic as an issue of ideas, that there was no debate.

Logical people would know better. And even if one disagrees with Allen on any number of different issues, one at least has to respect her acknowledgement of the ongoing debate.

It doesn't necessarily mean that she's happy about it.

Allen is apparently frustrated with parents who oppose the institution of extreme and provocative anti-discrimination education curriculum -- similar to that administered by the Toronto District School Board -- while some Catholic schools in Canada are giving students course credit for protesting against abortion, as is happening at Christ the King school in Winnipeg.

"According to the Winnipeg Free Press, students are being given full credits for doing so, and principal David Hood is considering making it an official school activity," Allen fumes. "Christ the King School is a private Catholic school in St. Vital, Manitoba providing instruction to students ranging from kindergarten to Grade 8. It's a funded independent school, which means that it receives 50 per cent of student tuition from the province."

"In Canada, there have been renewed efforts to eliminate all funding for International Planned Parenthood, even for women's health initiatives in countries where abortion is banned," she continues. "The United Way similarly came under fire for women's health support and some Canadian hairstylists reportedly participated in a campaign to discuss pro-life beliefs with customers. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform has been picketing schools of all levels across southern and central Alberta and BC with graphic signs."

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated during the election that he wasn't interested in reopening the debate about abortion," she concludes. "But he doesn't have to, and Canadians no longer have that luxury."

Precisely. There is still a debate on abortion, no matter how badly pro-abortion activists would prefer there isn't, no matter how vociferously they demand that it not take place.

This is increasingly going to be a problem for a movement that has convinced itself that it enjoys near-uniform support among Canadians, even as they applaud the jailing of their adversaries, as was the case when longtime anti-abortion activist Mary Wagner was jailed for counseling women against abortion too close to an abortion clinic.

“Despite numerous warnings from judges to stop breaking the law, she continues to do so,” remarked Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada coordinator Joyce Arthur. “Judges have little choice but to send people to jail when they do that. Wagner is apparently willing to pay the price, and so she should. Wagner needs to take responsibility for her actions and the harms she inflicts on women.”

Apparently, for Arthur, being confronted with the idea that the life they are about to terminate is human "inflicts harm on women."

If this were merely about keeping anti-abortion activists away from abortion clinics, it would be one thing. But Arthur's applause of the jailing of Wagner is unsurprising when one considers her long history of advocacy in favour of denying on-campus anti-abortion groups the same access to student resources as their pro-abortion adversaries.

In the sad history of pro-aboriton authoritarianism, Arthur has been its leading figure. If Mercedes Allen's admission that the abortion debate is active is going to provoke an angry outburst from the pro-abortion lobby, Joyce Arthur should be considered the leading candidate to freak out.

There's plenty of room to debate whether or not Catholic school students should be given course credit for anti-abortion protest (in this author's view, they absolutely should not).

But Mercedes Allen is entirely right: there is a debate on abortion taking place, regardless of how loudly pro-abortion authoritarians like Joyce Arthur demand that it not.

Right On CUPW, Fight On

2011-10-13T15:05:00.000-06:00

CUPW right to challenge Tories over back-to-work law

Having a majority government shouldn't mean the right to always have your way, even when you're wrong.

It's something that the Jean Chretien government never learned -- especially with its Hepatitis C shenanigans -- but it's something that the Harper government clearly needs to learn.

Many conservatives would likely be shocked to be told that they should actually support the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in their bid to challenge the Tories' back-to-work legislation in court. They should take it as far as the Supreme Court if they have to.

"This back-to-work legislation was unjust," declared CUPW President Denis Lemelin. "It was the democratic rights of workers that were attacked. There is a fundamental principle here -- the freedom of association."

CUPW isn't right about many things, and certainly not very often. The political activities of the union executive and far-left hardliners -- so often taken in the name of the entire union -- are certainly a big problem for the responsible governance of that union. But that isn't what was at stake with the back-to-work legislation, and anyone who thinks it is has confused the issue entirely.

Many conservatives have mistaken labour unions for their natural enemy. This isn't actually the case.

The labour rights that have made it possible for blue-collar, working-class people in Canada to succeed on their own terms were the result of agitation by labour unions.

Admittedly this was a long time ago, when labour unions were focused entirely on improving the workplace conditions of their workers. Now, many labour unions -- including CUPW -- are more focused on advancing the personal political agendas of their leaders.

Perhaps some Conservatives have concluded that the solution to this is to simply crush the unions outright. This is a mistake.

In cases such as the CUPW back-to-work legislation, it's difficult to escape the conclusion that this is precisely what the Tories have set out to do. It's important to remember that CUPW was not under a general strike when the legislation was introduced, they were locked out by Canada Post.

There is something very wrong with a government that has the power to direct the executives of a crown corporation to end the lockout they imposed instead imposing back-to-work legislation to send postal workers back to the job.

When union leaders note that the government's actions undermine the position of all labour unions in Canada to bargain collectively, they are entirely right. That the government seems so eager to intervene in the Air Canada flight attendants' strike is even more alarming. Air Canada may have been founded as a crown corporation, but it was privatized in 1988.

It seems that there's no limit to how itchy the Harper government's trigger finger has become, and no limit on when and where it's prepared to legislate workers back to work.

CUPW needs to win this court challenge for the benefit of all Canadian workers who have reaped the benefit of responsible collective bargaining. And frankly, this is one time that the Harper government needs to be taught a lesson.

Mirror, Mirror

2011-10-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

Occupy Wall Street not a perfect facsimile of the Tea Party, but something of a warped reflection

In many ways, Occupy Wall Street is starting to look more -- and less -- like the Tea Party. And apparently, the Tea Party doesn't like it.

According to Tea Party Patriots founders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, the two movements couldn't possibly be less alike.

"Tea Partiers don’t believe corporations are inherently evil, nor should bankers be beheaded," they wrote in a statement. "They do not believe this country should be divided by class, but united in a return to the principles that undergird our nation’s success. In fact, they want more of what made America great: more Constitutional restraint on government so that the people have more freedom to achieve the good things the country offers."

“By contrast, those occupying Wall Street and other cities, when they are intelligible, want less of what made America great and more of what is damaging to America: a bigger, more powerful government to come in and take care of them so they don’t have to work like the rest of us who pay our bills,” they continue.

There are a lot of differences between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. There's no questioning that.

For example, more than 2/3 of Occupiers are non-voters. Comparatively, Tea Partiers are overwhelmingly voters.

Considering that one of the common grievances each movement shares is that the political system doesn't work for them, at least one thing can be said for the Tea Party: they, at least, try.

Another obvious key difference is that the Tea Party is overwhelmingly law-abiding. Occupy Wall Street has had some trouble staying on that side of the law, and may have further trouble yet, as they plan to march on the homes of Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.

Yet each has draped themselves in the garb of a revolutionary movement. The Tea Party traced its animus back to the American Revolution. Occupy Wall Street seems to be inspired by the labour unrest of the Great Depression era.

Both movements demand that American politics shift away from its soul-crushing status quo toward what they consider the founding principles of the United States. In the case of the Tea Party, they look to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, they very clearly look to the New Deal, and hope to expand it far beyond the imagination of all but the most fervent tax-and-spend Democrat.

It's certain that many Occupiers feel just as strongly as Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler about the comparisons between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.

Just as with so many rivals, the real reason Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party dislike each other is because they are so much alike.

Chauncey DeVega Triples Down on Stupid

2011-10-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Race-obsessed writer obsesses over... who else? Herman Cain

There's something unique about the racism issue in the minds of the far-left. It's especially unique when one considers the case of far-leftists who are also minorities.

Simply put: racism never applies to them. They cannot be racist, even when they are being racist, when the target of that racism is someone who disagrees with them politically.

Ergo, the unique place Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain occupies in the mind of the far left. Even though he is an African American, he is also a conservative. Ergo, he cannot be a victim of racism because he isn't "really" an African-American. Ergo, they can direct all their racial hostilities at him to their heart's delight.

Case in point: Alternet writer Chauncey DeVega. Earlier in 2011, DeVega dabbled in black-on-black racism when he suggested Cain was simply a "ministrel act" for CPAC. And while an intellectually honest writer -- at least one being intellectually honest with himself -- might stop to question his own motivations after a feat like that, DeVega instead appealed his sense of entitlement to the political loyalties of everyone whose skin is so much as a shade darker than beige. (People like DeVega also believe they're entitled to the political loyalties of women and the LGBT community.)

So on the heels of Janeane Garofalo's self-humilation in first claiming that the conservative movement was paying Cain to run for President, and later claiming that they only supported him as a "racism shield", DeVega has taken it upon himself to investigate these issues a little further.

In a recent Alternet blogpost, DeVega explores some white supremacist websites, all the while asking himself: "what are the white supremacists saying about Herman Cain?"

Literally. It's the title of his blogpost.

Of course, rational people know the answer to that question. The answer, of course, being "who cares?"

Apparently, DeVega cares. He cares more than he actually cares about what Cain thnks, or why.

Think the irony of this over for just a few seconds. That's all it takes. Consider it: a far-left, race-obsessed, race-baiting crusader for black people who cares more about what a white supremacist thinks than what an actual, living, breathing, black man thinks -- so long as the aforementioned black man is a conservative.

It's the only thing remarkable about DeVega's screed. That, and the unique patience to actually read what a white supremacist thinks, giving a shit all the while.

Of course, it isn't that DeVega is at all disinterested in what Herman Cain thinks, or why. The problem is that DeVega cares what Cain thinks only enough to be outraged about it, outraged at the utter gall of another black man to have a differing opinion.

If Chauncey DeVega wrote for a publication that deserves to be taken seriously, it would be one thing. Alas, DeVega has shown, through AlterNet's bizarre patience for his bizarre screeds, that AlterNet has abandoned the unique reporting that put it on the journalistic map, and abandoned the journalistic standards that would otherwise keep black-on-black racism off of its webpages.

Taking Something Away From the Man

2011-10-10T21:46:00.000-06:00

Real Steel is the tale of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a washed-up boxer in over his head in the world of robot boxing.

Fuelled by the demand to watch two participants entirely obliterate each other to the death, robot boxing has seen automatons replace human fighters. Think of it as Bloodsport as waged by droids.

Kenton's life is that of mounting defeats and ever-increasing debt until he swings a shady deal for custody of his son Max (Dakota Goyo) with the boy's wealthy uncle. Max eventually helps Charlie stage a whirlwind comeback to a championship match with the robot boxing world champion, a robot by the name of Zeus.

In the world of Real Steel, human boxers no longer compete. Outpaced by the rise of Mixed Martial Arts and eventually cast aside entirely in favour of robots, the risk once accepted by human fighters is now shunted onto these robots.

In a perfect world, something like that would be great... for everyone but the fighters themselves.

People who frequently watch science fiction films have probably seen Star Trek: Insurrection, wherein the crew of the USS Enterprise travel to a planet populated by the Ba'Ku. They are believed to be a primitive society who has never developed the technology necessary to travel through space, but in actuality are an advanced society that has chosen to live in nearly Ahmish fashion.

One of the Ba'Ku, Sojef (Daniel Hugh Kelly), tells the crew that "we believe that when you make a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."

There is something to be said for this. But when applied to basic, day-to-day, menial tasks, that is one thing. When applied to longer-term pursuits, it's entirely another.

In Real Steel, robot boxers such as Atom, Zeus and Midas are controlled by humans, but the operators are reduced to the level of software. They operate the fighter, but never themselves fight. Theoretically, they experience all the thrill of fighting without ever actually having to take a punch.

But unlike with human righters, the operator is entirely interchangable. The operator may be able to pilot their fighter to victory, but never really win themselves. They may pilot their fighter to a championship, but never really become the champion.

The operators are at very little risk. As the film shows -- although it doesn't depict a Robot Jox-esque disaster (or, for that matter, a Reno Airraces-esque disaster) -- the operators and their spectators do face the risk of being injured by flying debris.

But they aren't at risk of being harmed by another fighter. They never have to take the punch, they never have to be knocked out. They'll never experience a concussion, never be afflicted by post-concussion syndrome.

Which is nice. But is it worth surrendering the opportunity to enjoy their successes for themselves, in their own name?

Those who would gleefully ban boxing, MMA fighting, air racing, or any other hazardous sport in favour of some kind of remote-controlled alternative would almost certainly believe it is.

As the example of Charlie Kenton suggests, the competitors themselves probably wouldn't be so keen. And while the film predictably concludes with Kenton celebrating having led his robot to a triumph of sorts, it's fair to speculate on whether his satisfaction would last, or if it would be eclipsed by the opportunity to step into the ring and win a championship with his own fists.

If humanity starts building machines to pursue human excellence, people like Charlie Kenton would be denied the opportunity to achieve it for themselves.

Humans denied the opportunity to pursue human excellence: it's as chilling an idea in a fictional world as it is in the real world.

The NDP Gives Democracy a A Great Big Orange Middle Finger

2011-10-09T16:29:00.000-06:00

NDP's stance on extra seats for growing provinces anti-democratic

The NDP must think that Canadians in Alberta, Ontario and BC aren't just aren't paying attention.

That's the only explanation for their position opposing the addition of new Parliamentary seats for Alberta, BC and Ontario. These provinces have long been underrepresented in Parliament, and the rapid growth of the population of these provinces only ensures that it will get worse if it isn't addressed.

Fortunately, Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal is prepared to move to alleviate this issue.

"Currently, Canadians in the fastest-growing provinces are severely underrepresented," Uppal explained. "We believe that every Canadian vote, to the greatest extent possible, should carry equal weight."

David Christopherson, the NDP's Democratic Renewal critic, has vowed that the NDP will fight the re-distribution tooth and nail. And therein lies the evidence that the NDP thinks Canadians aren't paying attention.

In August, NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel even had the nerve to describe the proposed new seats as "divisive".

"The approach of the Harper government is really divisive right now. It's not constructive, it's not nation-building," Turmel insisted.

Of course any Canadian with even the remotest grip on reality know precisely what this statement is:

A lie.

It's the NDP who are trying to divide Canadians over the addition of more seats to Parliament, and it's unfortunate they don't respect Canadians enough to tell the truth about it.

It's the NDP who are looking to voters in BC, Alberta and Ontario and telling them they aren't good enough to have the same electoral weight as voters in Quebec. It's the NDP who are looking to these voters and telling them they must remain second-class citizens in Canada.

Fortunately, voters in Alberta, BC and Ontario are paying attention to this issue. And what do they see? They see the Conservative Party sanding up for their right to equal representation, and they see the NDP opposing it.

It's not a hard conclusion to reach: if you live in Ontario, BC or Alberta, the NDP is not on your side. They are against you.

Occupy Wall Street? More Like Resistance is Futile

2011-10-09T13:33:00.000-06:00

Sheer weirdness is a quality that has long permeated many far-left protest movements. But Occupy Atlanta takes the cake.

While the entire occupation movement has prided itself on claiming to be free-thinking individuals standing against a system that does not work for them -- although the detail that most of them are non-voters indicates that, in typical lazy-leftist fashion, they haven't even tried -- the groupthink aspect of the movement has become unignorable.

The case in point is an attempt by Congressman John Lewis (Democrat) to speak before the Occupy Atlanta General Assembly.

Lewis is widely known as a civil rights hero, and with good reason. But apparently that doesn't impress the weirdos at Occupy Atlanta, who instead of listening to Lewis speak, instead insisted on repeating after every single word spoken.

The emerging elements of Stalinism emerging from under the riptides of the occupation movement only becomes more frightening when one considers that the alleged free-thinking members of the occupation movement, at the very least in Atlanta, are proving to be nothing more than sheeple.

They've become their very own real-life Borg Collective. Almost quite literally.

Of course, those familiar with the Sci-Fi-Mythical Borg know full well that there is absolutely no freedom within such a collective, and whether one surrenders their freedom willingly or if it is taken from them by force seems entirely irrelevant.

It's becoming crystal clear: the "new America" Occupy Wall Street imagines is one in which people think in an increasingly uniform fashion, literally dictated them to the vanguard-esque demagogues who are more interested in obstructing the speech of people like John Lewis than in what they actually have to say.

Occupy Wall Street seems to be coming to think that resistance is futile. But they're in for a shock. despite their self-aggrandizing claims to represent "the 99%", Occupy Wall Street would be lucky to represent as much as 9% of American society, and the other at least 91% aren't going to put up with this kind of stupidity if they decide to try to impose it by force.

Ontario's Left & the Bully Pulpit of Unlimited Spending

2011-10-05T16:15:00.001-06:00

Campaign finance law needs to reign in labour unions

Canada's elections law essentially allow ganging-up by anyone willing to establish a third-party campaign.

It's no secret. The 2011 federal election was a splendid example of an attempt to do this, as dozens of far-left campaigns sprung up, eager to defeat the governing Conservative Party through the organization of strategic voting and, in some cases, outright lies.

So long as registered third-party campaigns are willing to stick the truth, they for the most part present no great dilemma for campaign finance law. At least not at the federal level.

At the provincial level, however, particularly in Ontario, it seems that there is a problem. A big one.

In Ontario, it seems that third-party campaigns face no spending limits, allowing some third-party campaigns to essentially gang up and bully the provincial Progressive Conservative Party, who are subject to spending limits and cannot effectively defend themselves.

The Working Families Coalition is the most publicly-known example. It claims to be independent of the Liberal Party, but was in fact directly organized by the Liberals. Another example that comes to mind is the "No Gun, No Funeral" campaign organized and operated out of then-Attorney General Michael Bryant's campaign offices.

In each case, Elections Ontario opted to ignore the undeniable connections between these organizations and the Ontario Liberal Party and treat them as an independent third-party. What had actually happened is that these groups allowed the Liberal Party of Ontario to breach campaign spending limits.

It's evidence that Elections Ontario is just as ill as Elections Canada, and needs the same overhaul of the people running the institution.

“The rule is too loose. We need the teeth of the federal rules if we’re to keep elections from being swayed,” remarked York University political science professor Robert MacDermid. He recently produced a report that demonstrates just how badly organizations like Labour Unions have abused the system in their bids to help out their partisan allies. (In the case of public service unions, this amounted to picking their own bosses.)

“The possibility of corruption is so much less,” MacDermid says of the federal campaign finance laws.

It's worth noting that the Coaliton for a Better Ontario came out on the side of the then-Mike Harris led Tories in 1999. Any connection between that organization and the Ontario Tories is unknown to this author, but just as troublesome if they existed.

MacDermid suggests the provincial Tories wouldn't complain if such a group were helping them, and he's likely right.

For Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's part, however, he's naturally pleased with the current status quo.

“We’ve got a great system here,” McGuinty remarked. “There are so many different avenues for people to give expression to their opinion. I believe in a strong collision of ideas.”

Unfortunately for McGuinty, that isn't what's happening right now, and he knows it full well. What is currently taking place is that his party has organized an environment in which they and the third-party campaigns they themselves organized can gang up on the PCs, whose own hands are tied.

Under the watch of the Dalton McGuinty Liberals, Ontario's lax rules on third-party campaigning have become a bully pulpit from which they can unfairly dominate their opponents. It needs to be stopped at the earliest opportunity.

What Is Occupy Wall Street? Exactly?

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

Occupy Wall Street more left-wing Tea Party than Arab Spring

Writing in an op/ed for National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg turns his attention to a persistent movement that cannot be ignored: the self-styled Occupy Wall Street movement.

Goldberg seems to enjoy the naive precociousness of the movement. There's little question about that.

But Goldberg seems to nearly overlook what, at this point, is the most important question of all: what, precisely, is Occupy Wall Street? It's not as ridiculous a question as it may seem. They haven't really been clear.

"I don’t think this thing has nearly the legs its boosters do. For starters, for all the talk about this being the US version of the Arab Spring (a disgusting, and idiotic, anti-American slander by the way), at least the Arabs were smart enough to start the Arab Spring in the Spring! These bozos chose the fall which means it’s only going to get colder. No doubt some will hold out in their urban yurts for as long as it takes, but that self-anointed avant garde of the campus proletariat is going to get lonely when it starts to snow (of course they could all migrate south for the winter)."

The "Arab Spring" notion is a vain idea shared by many far-left protesters with delusions of persecution. Canadian human bobblehead Brigette DePape has taken a certain pleasure in being compared to Arab Spring activists, neglecting to consider the fact that she was at no threat of violence, unlike Libyan activists who were at risk of airstrikes.

Likewise with the Occupy Wall Street activists. They are at positively no risk of even a sideways glance from law enforcement until they do something stupid like attempt to block the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, no. Occupy Wall Street is not the Arab Spring. Nor do they truly represent 99% of anyone, let alone Americans. As Goldberg muses -- and he is absolutely correct -- the very notion is utterly comical.

If anything, Occupy Wall Street is the left-wing Tea Party.

They'll certainly refuse to admit it. They'll even feign indignant outrage at the very suggestion. But it's true, and the conclusion is unavoidable.

Like the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street will learn how difficult it is to produce a coherent message from so many divergent ideas. They'll learn how easy it is to be typecast by the most extreme among them; although many would likely find that the average extremism index -- if there were such a thing -- would be sky-high in the Wall Street Occupation movement compared to the average member of the Tea Party.

And while the mainstream media won't be as willingly complicit in the demonization of Occupy Wall Street, they will eventually learn what it is to be demonized. Some of them will deserve it; many of them will not. Unfortunately, that demonization has become an occupational hazard for grassroots movements in the US.

Just ask the Tea Party.

TDSB on Parents: Screw You. Does the Ontario Liberal Party Agree?

2011-10-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

TDSB refuses to hear concerns of parents on anti-discrimination curriculum

As the Ontario election showly plods toward its conclusion, it seems that the Liberal Party has become increasingly frustrated with its inability to take a lead and put this election away.

Now, they're resorting to their typical tactic of last resort: accusing their opponents of bigotry.

The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party has taken up the issue of the Toronto District School Board's anti-discrimination curriculum, placing it at the centre of the election. And rightfully so.

The Liberal Party and various far-left groups have predictably declared a new flier being distributed by the Tories to be "homophobic". It's typical far-left bully language, trying to intimidate their opponents into silence.

It was tried once before. When a controversial sex education program was proposed by the McGuinty government, any who objected to the education of Grade 6 students in matters such as anal sex were declared to be homophobic. Contrary to the intention of activist groups to intimidate religious groups, and ordinary parents, out of the debate, public pressure instead built until McGuinty's government was forced to postpone the changes for further consideration.

The TDSB apparently had no appetite for "further consideration", or even for public consideration at all. As reported by Michael Coren, the Equity Advisory Committee of the TDSB decided that public consultation was unnecessary.

One member of the committee who attempted to raise objections to the curriculum was shouted down and declared a homophobe by other members of the committee. The committee, when contacted by producers of Coren's show, were told that this woman was "only a parent." They also accused her of being "singularly destructive."

Nothing could make the attitude of these people toward parents any more clear: the concerns of parents are not to be heard, are not to be considered, are not even to be taken seriously.

They believe they have all the power, and it's their clear intention to deny any modicum of power to parents; at least to those who don't blindly support their extreme agenda.

It isn't that fighting bullying in schools through education is an extreme agenda. However, subjecting children to demagogic (not pedagogic) far-left reeducation programs over the objections of parents very clearly is.

Not everything within the TDSB anti-discrimination curriculum is extreme and outrageous. For example, teaching kids about different family structures is entirely reasonable; many of these children are already growing up in non-conventional family units, so this is very much a live issue for them.

The question of whether or not they're a boy or a girl, however, and the curriculum's teachings on transgendered persons, is not a live issue for these kids. And the recent case of Thomas Lobel, a California child who has apparently decided, on a whim, that he would rather be a girl than a boy.

His adoptive parents have decided to indulge this whim by putting him on hormone blockers, hoping that he can decide by puberty whether or not he wants to be a boy or a girl.

Anyone who imagines a child, even at age 14, is psychologically qualified to make that kind of life-defining decision, is simply out of their minds.

This case underscores precisely what is so irresponsible and reckless about what the TDSB wants to teach young children; planting the question in their heads about whether they are a boy or a girl long before they can be expected to make such a decision while understanding the gravity of the choice.

Contrary to claims by the Ontario Liberal Party, there is nothing inaccurate about the flier. It accurately reflects how eager the TDSB is to trample parental rights in their well-intentioned desire to stop the bullying of gay, lesbian and transgendered people in society.

It's not their intentions that are misguided; it's their actions.

The Toronto District School Board is apparently more than content to thumb its nose at the rights of parents. In jumping all over this issue, the Liberal Party seems to be sending a message to the parents of Ontario that it's willing to do the same.

They should not be rewarded at the polls for this. Quite the contrary: they should be punished with the loss of their government until such a time that they are willing to approach these issues responsibly.

Behold, the Mindset of the Palin Haters

2011-10-04T09:00:00.001-06:00

Ben Quayle's Reelection Prospects Dim, Just a Little

2011-10-04T08:00:00.000-06:00

Arizona redistricting changes game for Quayle

When Ben Quayle ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, he outraged Democrats when he did so on a message declaring President Barack Obama to be the worst President in history.

Running in a heavily-favoured Republican riding, there was little possibility they could defeat Quayle, thus punishing him for what they considered to be an offensive message. (As Obama continues to stumble toward the conclusion of this Presidential term, it's becoming increasingly clear that such individuals were offended by Quayle's words because they are so nearly true.)

But as the 2012 elections approach, Democrats will now have a greater opportunity to defeat Quayle. Following redistricting in Arizona, Quayle's district is no longer heavily Republican. However, his district retains a narrow Republican advantage in voter registration.

Some may entertain the notion that Quayle was specifically targetted by Democrats -- two Democrats and an independent on the redistricting commission voted against a single Republican to approve the changes -- but this actually does not seem to be the case.

While the changes in Quayle's district are clearly a disadvantage to him, it does create a heavily-Republican district which currently has no incumbent.

This isn't to say there will be no controversy surrounding these changes. This is the first redistricting conducted under a new law in Arizona that assigns the authority to determine redistricting to independent commissions, as opposed to the state legislature.

This is an improvement. However, the law also requires that respect "communities of interest" while still observing geogrpahic and municipal political boundaries. This could provide the impetus for significant political manipulation of the process, although there is no evidence that is what has taken place in this case.

The only thing that has happened is that Ben Quayle will have to work a little harder to be reelected in 2012. There's nothing wrong with that.

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

Republicans need to rally under a candidate, and cannot allow ideological vanity to bind them

Writing in an op/ed in The Daily Beast, Meghan McCain sounds an important alarm for Republicans eager to defeat President Barack Obama in 2012:

Rally behind a candidate. Do it quickly.

"Sarah Palin accused [Herman] Cain of being the 'flavor of the week,' and this is one of the rare times I agree with her," she writes. "The Republicans are suffering from what Bill Maher recently dubbed a 'promiscuous' problem with our candidates. We keep having one-night stands with politicians we think we only want to marry, and then get cold feet."

"The short list includes the likes of Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry with a possible addition of Chris Christie," she continues. "All of this excitement is soon followed by a quick fizzle of disappointment when these candidates look flawed under the spotlight of the media, incapable of pleasing the temperamental Republican base. It is as if we are more concerned with the drama of the electing a new prom king than concentrating on who the best person to beat Obama is."

McCain is precisely right to point this out as a serious problem, but she seems to fall short on elaborating why. Republicans actually don't have a good reason for it, either.

The reason, far too often, has turned out to be ideological vanity.

To date the favourites in the Republican primary have shifted from Mitt Romney, to Rick Perry, and now to Herman Cain. Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann have been promising candidates, but really only pretenders.

At each turn, Republicans have agonized over whether or not each candidate is the ideologically perfect conservative. In turn, both Romney and Perry have been found to be imperfect. Now it seems that it's Cain's turn.

And Cain will be found to be imperfect. Because he is imperfect. So are Romney, Perry, Pawlenty, Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, et al.

In the search for the perfect conservative, Republicans may well cut themselves off from the best Presidential candidate. They should know this well already. In 2008, many conservative Republican voters didn't show up to vote for John McCain because he was deemed to be ideologically imperfect.

What was the result? President Barack Obama.

Republicans have already been bitten by this bit of political snobbery before. They shouldn't allow themselves to fall victim to it again.

To date, Cain appears like he may be the best conservative of all the candidates in the field, embodying each of the most important intellectual traditions of conservatism.

The remaining rational objections are not based on Cain's ideological characteristics, but of his political qualifications.

"We are a little more than three months away from the New Hampshire primary and Republicans need to start getting our act together. Cain has a very small window right now to utilize his momentum and prove that he should be the next GOP nominee," McCain notes. "But let’s face reality: as much as even I can find myself developing warm feelings toward Cain because he seems like a nice, charming and normal person, if that were the only qualifications for president, we should be nominating Zach Galifianakis. Although Cain has been outrageously successful as a businessman, he has almost no experience on politics and has never actually held public office."

"In the time of such extreme anti-Washington rhetoric, Cain may play like a good thing in the primary stump speeches. I admit that even I have found myself getting caught up in his moment," she continues. "But I assure you when the rubber starts hitting the road, voters are going to want someone with real experience in all areas of politics, especially when it comes to foreign policy, something Cain has quite no experience in (unless Godfather's Pizza delivers to Canada)."

Barack Obama didn't have any foreign policy experience either, and Americans still elected him President. Also, Cain's lack of experience in political office could prove to be refreshing for many voters.

Cain hasn't been subject to the horse trading that takes place on Capitol hill, and hasn't been subdued by the idea that everything is a matter of such horse trading.

This isn't to say that a relentlessly-uncompromising President is what would be best for America, or even that Cain would be such a President. Compromise that leads to, for example, a more equitable budget is far preferable than horse trading that leads to pork barreling.

Meghan McCain is precisely right that time is running out for the Republican Party to start giving its Presidential candidates a serious look. Hopefully she -- and all Republicans -- will remember that the search for the perfect candidate may well cost them their best candidate if they aren't careful.

TDSB Criticisms Have the Kangaroos of the Far Left Hopping

2011-10-02T17:19:00.002-06:00

With the far-left desperate to silence any criticial discussion of the Toronto District School Board's anti-discrimination curriculum, it was only a matter of time before things came to a head.

With the Toronto SUN printing the controversial ad by Charles McVety's Institute for Canadian Values, even after the National Post was cowed into printing an apology for it, the activists desperate to conceal the authoritarianism underlying the anti-discrimination curriculum have finally decided to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.

It was inevitable.

At least one blogger is bragging about having complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The clear goal is to harness the power of the state to shut down any discussion of the TDSB's anti-discrimination curriculum, whether it's actually age-appropriate, and whether or not the TDSB has violated the rights of parents.

The open letter, written by one Kim May of Sarnia, ON, actually includes some rather remarkable ramblings that seem entirely disconnected with the content of the ICV ad:

"...you would have them drawn and quartered if you could...since you are ignorant and intolerant of difference."

"Have you learned nothing from WWII. You can't ship different people off to an camp somewhere, simply for being different. This has been tried in the past."

The extent to which the imaginations of such people has utterly run away with them.

The demagogues and would-be demagogues, crusaders and would-be crusaders, of the far-left have become so indifferent to the concerns of others that they are now demanding that such people be silenced by the state.

If the full scope of the authoritarianism of the far-left wasn't on full display in the TDSB's locking out of parents, it's certainly going to be on full display if -- more likely when -- the Ontario Human Rights Commission decides to pursue far-left vengeance against Charles McVety in all its kangaroo court glory.

Juast as they have so many times before, they will take Charles McVety and make him a sympathetic figure in the eyes of freedom-loving Canadians. All this while they are so blinkered by their own ideology that they can't even see it.

The Single Thread That Unravels Joe McGinniss' Career

2011-10-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

McGinniss' double-talk has destroyed his credibility

Once upon a time, Joe McGinniss was a reputable and respected journalist.

After The Rogue, he isn't anymore. He never will be again.

The full extent to which McGinniss' creepy obsession with Sarah Palin has destroyed him seems to be entirely lost on McGinniss, along with the fact that his double-speak regarding Palin has not escaped notice.

For example, McGinniss claimed in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan that the linkage of his book to supermarket tabloids was the result of the National Enquirer publishing tales contained in his book, only to later admit that he used that publication as a source.

But that isn't McGinniss' most serious problem.

McGinniss' most serious problem is the single thread that unravels not only The Rogue, but McGinniss' entire career.

Two separate claims are made in The Rogue that, together, cannot be true. Only one or the other can be true.

In the book -- an assertion McGinniss has repeated at length during the rapidly-dwindling media interviews he's given in support of the book, he claims that Palin is a religious fanatic.

"She sounds stupid and she is stupid, so that part is real," McGinnis remarked. "This folksy, family values kind of thing, it's just the opposite. She's not folksy, she's not warm, she's not personable, she's not just the girl next door. She's a vengeful, mean spirited, somewhat paranoid woman who's also a religious fanatic."

The banal malice of McGinniss' words have long been typical of the manner in which she's approached by the left.

But, as The Rogue would also have it, Palin actually is not religious at all.

As revealled by an embarrassingly-fawning review in the Toronto Star:

"'There was no religion,' an insider reveals. 'There was nothing about God. There was no Christ. Nobody prayed. No Bibles. No crosses. None of that was ever there. Never.'"

So McGinniss writes that Palin is, deep down, a fanatical religious fundamentalist. And he also writes that Palin's public displays of religious belief are a sham, because she and her family are not even remotely religious.

It doesn't take a PHD in philosophy to recognize that both of these things can be true. One could be true. Or the other could be true. But not the two together.

So which one of these two possibilities is true? So far, it's a question that the few media outlets that have allowed his presence to pollute their broadcasts have so far declined to ask him.

With the media turning away from McGinniss, it's clear that they've figured out that the precise worth of his book is pure bullshit.

The fact that he can so rarely keep his story straight is just the icing on that particular pile of cow dung.

What Time Do the Cows Come Home in Ontario?

2011-09-30T13:28:00.000-06:00

Apparently, Nikki Holland will only deny smokes for votes until then

Ontario voters eager to hear the truth about the allegations that Liberal Party of Ontario Vice-President (Operations) bribing homeless people with cigarettes will only have to wait until the cows come home.

In reality, they're more than just "allegations". Audio recorded of Holland's comments have her admission in full.

"If anyone repeats this, I'll deny it until the cows come home," Holland remarked. "I have gone to a shelter in the riding of St Paul's with a carton of smokes and said 'I'll give them to you after you vote'. I have done that."

Once the recording came to light, Holland set about doing precisely what she said she would do: denying it. The recording has made that more than just a little awkward.

To account for that, Holland is claiming that what she said was "a joke". But there doesn't seem to be much reason to believe her.

She's also tried to spin the issue back on her political opponents by insisting that the NDP and Conservative Party do the same.

In the most amusing twist yet, Premier Dalton McGuinty responded not by doing what would have been expected of someone in his delicate position -- either collecting Holland's resignation or firing her from at least the campaign -- but has publicly accepted her apology.

"It was a bad joke in poor taste," McGuinty remarked. "She apologized for it."

It simply doesn't pass the laugh test.

It's only the most recent incident in a gaffe-ridden election campaign for McGuinty's Liberals, one that featured a staged photo-op at a closed factory and a lawsuit brought against the Ontario government by one of the very green energy companies McGuinty is championing as the future of the Ontario economy.

McGuinty's explanation for the staged photo-op didn't pass the laugh test, nor does his explanation for this scandal.

Especially damning is that Holland delivered these remarks at a training seminar for Liberal Party campaign workers. Even if Holland were joking -- and no one believes that she was -- if there are any Liberal campaign workers currently bribing homeless people with cigarettes, we know where they got the idea.

Nikki Holland cannot stay on as VP (Operations) of the Ontario Liberals, and if Dalton McGuinty continues to parrot her disingenuous explanation, he cannot stay on as leader of the party.

Both must go, before the cows come home.

Authoritarian Post-modernism Oversteps Its Bounds

2011-09-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

LGBT activists freaking out over Institute for Canadian Values ad

Across Canada, LGBT activists are up in arms over a full-page ad placed in the National Post by Charles McVety's Institute for Canadian Values.

In the ad, a young girl is pictured above a caption reading "I'm a girl. Don't teach me to question if I'm a boy, transexual, transgenered, intersexed or two-spirted."

A header at the top of the ad reads: "Please! Don't confuse me."

The ad is in opposition to the Toronto District School Board's anti-discrimination curriculum, which has garnered increased public attention since a planning calendar sent home for first grade students came to light. The calendar featured references to prostitution, transgendered people, AIDs, and female genital mutilation.

All of this and more... for six year olds.

The TDSB anti-discrimination curriculum insists that it's age-appropriate. A great many Torontonians -- and Canadians -- are coming to disagree.

LGBT activists quickly voiced their outrage that the ad would be printed, and immediately began to deploy their typical responses, accusing McVety of being a homophobe and a transphobe.

But as it turns out, the ad is entirely accurate. The accusations are merely bully words, intended to intimidate McVety out of the debate, and similarly intimidate anyone who may be inclined to agree with him.

This author is not inclined to agree with McVety very often on these sorts of issues. But your not-so-humble scribe does find one important point of agreement on this particular subject: the authoritarian approach of the TDSB to this curriculum is entirely unacceptable.

In the ad, the curriculum is directly quoted regarding the rights of parents in relation to this curriculum. The TDSB makes itself clear: it believes parents have no right to object to this curriculum.

"'Can a parent have their child accomodated out of human rights education (LGBTQ) based on religious grounds? NO'

'Should schools send notes or permission slips home before starting any classroom work on LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual/two-spirited, queer) issues? NO'

'Can teachers seek accomodation from teaching materials that may contradict their religious beliefs? NO'

'Can schools/teachers choose not to address controversial issues for fear of negative parent response? NO'

'Teachers are obligated to address all equity issues. Any ommisisions that maintain a non-inclusive curriculum and pedagogy are considered to foster a poisoned environment..."

The problem is that the environment is already poisoned, and has been poisoned by the TDSB. Whether one likes or dislikes the religious beliefs of any number of people -- and there is much to dislike about religious beliefs that may lead one into homophobia -- the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to hold such beliefs.

Moreover, parents have the right to raise their children according to these beliefs. They have the right to decide what their children will be taught, for good or ill.

The TDSB does not recognize these rights. They've locked parents out, refusing them their parental rights. It's absolutely shameful.

Meanwhile, some LGBT activists have not only missed the point, but they've lost the plot.

A parody ad, produced by Toronto film maker and LGBT activist Chase Joynt, declares "I'm Chase. Teach me to question everything! Specifically that transgender, transsexual, intersexed and two-spirit are just some of my options."

More is wrong with Joynt's response than can be named in one place at one time.

The first is that Joynt is very clearly an adult. He appears to be in his late 20s, if not his 30s. As such, Joynt is mature enough in life that he can reflect on these issues and make these decisions with a full understanding of whatever consequences they may have.

In other words, while Joynt's own questioning nature -- if it is at all genuine -- is worthy of applause, but he is not a child. Not like the children the TDSB's anti-discrimination curriculum is aimed at.

Anyone who has had any dealings with children, whatsoever, know that children are far more impulsive than the vast majority of adults. Neither Joynt nor the demagogues at the TDSB have stopped for so much as an instant to wonder about a child who may -- thinking that the idea seems neat -- decide that they are transgendered, not having considered what impact that decision may have on their lives.

Which brings up the other area in which Joynt has entirely lost the plot. LGBT activists have long insisted -- and scienctific studies strongly support this -- that LGBT is not a lifestyle choice. They'd likely tell Joynt to go back and listen to his Lady Gaga CDs a little more closely, because gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals were "Born This Way".

These aren't "options", as Joynt suggests. They aren't "lifestyle choices", as far-right anti-LGBT activists insist.

“What’s crucial about any curriculum in regard to identity politics is that it’s providing a breadth of options and potentially the inclusion of LGBT rights in any curriculum at any level is that it affords another opinion,” Joynt insists. “While I think there is opportunity to speak to things such as when is age appropriate, the ability to learn about those identities is integral to our success as educators.”

If Joynt is really interested in fostering discussion about whether or not this curriculum is age-appropriate (and that would be welcome, indeed), the least he could do is not obscure this issue in his counter-ad.

In the end, this issue is very simple: the postmodern leftist ideology behind this curriculum has overstepped its bounds, adopted the trappings of authoritarianism, and violated the rights of parents.

If it's up to Charles McVety and the Institute for Canadian Values to rally ordinary Canadians to shove the footsoldiers of this grievance-mongering demagoguery back across the line, that is what will simply have to happen.

Ed Miliband to David: "Please Come Back"

2011-09-30T10:00:00.001-06:00

Labour leader wants his brother in his shadow cabinet

With all the bad news piling up for Labour leader Ed Miliband, he could certainly use some good news.

The news he would welcome most is embracing his brother David back into his inner circle.

As Miliband prepares to promote a number of women within his shadow cabinet -- including Yvette Cooper -- what Miliband really covets is the return of his brother.

"David is a massive asset to our politics and our party," the younger Miliband declared. “And I’ve always said I’d be happy to have him back, I want to have him back. But in the end he’s got to decide what’s the right thing for him to do.”

After the 2010 Labour leadership contest, the elder Miliband decided the right thing for him to do was sit on the backbenches. But with Labour struggling in Parliament and suffering in the eyes of Britain's political class, Ed Miliband needds a game-changer.

The addition of David Miliband to his shadow cabinet could be that very game-changer. But it seems tension between the two siblings could be preventing that from happening.

“It was a difficult leadership contest that we had. It was difficult for us. The reason I stood is because I felt I had something distinctive to say and I said it yesterday [in my conference speech]," the younger Miliband explained. "That is was why I ran. That’s what I believe. That’s why I think society needs to change.”

For his own part, David Miliband is focused on grassroots organizing for a Labour Party that has come to tend to neglect that key part of political organizing.

“It is my way of supporting Ed, supporting the party and helping us back into Government," the elder Miliband explained. “He’s been very supportive, the party’s been supportive, which is good."

The problem for David Miliband is that the weak leadership being provided by his brother threatens to undermine any gains he makes through grassroots organizing. Perhaps it isn't merely Ed Miliband who needs his brother in the shadow cabinet. Perhaps David Miliband needs to be there to shore up his own gains.

Either way, the Miliband brothers are better off working together within the shadow cabinet. Even if David doesn't see that, Ed keenly does. How could he not?

Janeane Garofalo Starring In... Far-Left Racism-Obsessed Virtual Reality Moonbattery

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

When a would-be media figure is as marginal as Janeane Garofalo, they certainly face continual pressure to stay relevant.

For her own part, Garofalo has no idea how to do that. So when appearing on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, she decided to re-hash her greatest hits: accusing conservatives of racism.

It's something she tried before, when she accused the Tea Party of opposing the policies of US President Barack Obama out of "racism, straight-up". Her most recent dip into her arsenal of weaponized racism is a little more confusing. They support Republcian Presidential hopeful Herman Cain out of racism.

Get it? If they oppose a black man politically, they're racist. If they support a black man politically, they're racist. Garofalo's argument basically amounts to "they're racist, no matter what."

"Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same," Garofalo declared. "People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'"

Olbermann being Olbermann, he declines to offer any critical comment or question of Garofalo's comments, even the one that seems entirely elementary to any rational human being.

(Considering that Olbermann began the segment by noting that Palin didn't focus on what GOP hopefuls were doing wrong in the debates, it's pretty clear that Olbermann is allowing his personal bias to absolutely overwhelm ration.)

To describe Garofalo's argument as childish is beyond understatement. But examining it logically for any more than two seconds immediately reveals something abotu Garofalo that rathional people... already knew.

As an argument, this is intellectually lazy. It's exceedingly intellectually lazy. It essentially amounts to virtual reality reasoning.

Originally posited by Norman Mailer, virtual reality reasoning describes a closed system of thought. The virtual reality thinker locks themselves into a narrow, compact realm of possibilities. Not only may no answer to any question be found that is not already programmed within the system, but no question may be asked that isn't already programmed into that system.

For Garofalo, the question is "why are conservatives racist?" The answer is "because conservatives are racist, no matter what."

In a previous outing on Olbermann's show, Garofalo suggests that someone may even be paying Cain to run for President. She offers absolutely no evidence other than her own demand that any visible minority give her their undying political allegiance.

It seems necessary to wonder whether Garofalo herself is the nut or the dolt in the "nuts and dolts"-themed segment until one realizes that she's both.

Any information that Garofalo is presented with -- including an impressive level of support for Cain's ideas within the Tea Party -- will, in her mind, immediately be warped and twisted to reach one conclusion: the Tea Party, Republicans and conservatives are all racist. No matter what.

And yet Janeane Garofalo wants to be the absolute arbiter of who does and does not have credibility. It will be a sad day for American politics if she ever actually achieves that level of influence.

The Left-Wing Media at Work, Continued

2011-09-29T12:02:00.000-06:00

Far-left Vancouver rag The Georgia Straight is no stranger to Vancouver Club employee-strangling 9/11 "truth"er Darren Pearson. They didn't shy away from covering the Dick Cheney protest (both before and after the fact).

So why not a single, solitary mention of Pearson's brutish act?

The Left-Wing Media At Work

2011-09-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

There are plenty of decent reasons for the Canadian left to object to former US Vice President Dick Cheney's speech at the Vancouver Club in Vancouver, BC this week.

It certainly doesn't excuse some of the things that took place outside the Vancouver club.

Outside the club, protesters did what left-wing protesters in Canada have now adopted as their top tactic at times such as these: they accosted the people who had paid their hard-earned money for the opportunity to hear Cheney speak. They blocked the sidewalk, refused these citizens safe passage, obstructed access to public property, and in one extreme example, assaulted a staff member at the club.

Yet if one relied solely on the reporting by left-wing media outlets, one would think that none of this ever happened. One would think that entirely peaceful protesters were assaulted by Vancouver police.

You would never hear the story of one of their own, one Darren Pearson, wrapping his fingers around the neck of a Vancouver Club employee, who was attempting to help speech attendees find a way around the throng, and throttling him.

You would never hear from them the satisfaction that Pearson derived from the act, or the pleasure he's taking in the attention he's now receiving.

“It was so much fun,” Pearson remarked. “I can’t tell you how much fun I had. I was laughing my ass off, jumping into that mosh pit.”

“I call it fun," Person continued. "We wanted to draw people’s attention and show up to support our demands to have that evil bastard arrested for war crimes. If it bleeds, it leads. We got the media coverage we wanted.”

One would never hear a peep of this from Canada's far-left media. The Georgia Strait uploaded numerous YouTube videos of the protest, including some depicting what it considered the unwarranted actions of police officers clearing sidewalks to allow the citizens who very likely paid the lion's share of the cost of paving them. Rabble.ca featured an article penned by David P Ball complaining about police "roughing up" protesters.

Neither mention a single word about Pearson's actions, or about the man he assaulted. Not a single, solitary mention of the incident.

Do they approve of Pearson's actions, or are they just hoping that no one will take notice of them? It's difficult to say. But one way or the other, they're covering up Pearson's actions.

The cover-up is certainly at odds with the high standard of journalistic ethics Rabble purports to represent. An ad on the website (pictured left) describes them as "not just reporting", but "just reporting". As in their reporting embodies some principles of justice being elaborated on in some left-wing think tank who will twist it in whatever way necessary to benefit the left and put everyone else at a disadvantage.

In other words: victor's justice before any victory has ever actually been won.

In the case of Dick Cheney, even if one finds the allegations that he authorized torture in the US forces -- and this author agrees that many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by Cheney constitute torture -- there is the matter of precisely what they imagine the endgame to be.

As things currently stand, it isn't Cheney on trial.

There are certainly accusations outstanding against Cheney that he authorized torture. He doesn't deny them. But there is one key element missing in these people's endgame plan: a warrant.

If people such as Derrick O'Keefe were able to take Cheney into their custody tomorrow, as they imagine, and transport him to the Hague, as they imagine, Cheney would immediately be set free. It isn't up to Derrick O'Keefe to issue an arrest warrant for Cheney, and those to whom it is up to haven't issued that warrant.

In fact, O'Keefe and his merry band of showboaters would promptly wind up in custody for unlawful confinement; they have no authority to place Cheney under arrest.

Perhaps Dick Cheney should be standing trial in the Hague. That's for others to actually decide.

But the far-left media, for all its love of pinning violent incidents on their conservative opponents -- often under exceedingly self-generous pretenses -- should own up to and acknowledge the actions of Darren Pearson at the protest they themselves helped organize.

If they can't do this, they have no moral authority to denounce the actions Vancouver police did to assure the safety of people who had the right to access to the Vancouver Club and hear Dick Cheney speak.

Not that anyone should expect them to. It's just the way they operate.

Sack Balls, Screw the Unions

2011-09-29T10:00:00.001-06:00

Ed Balls helped create British fiscal mess, cannot remain Shadow Chancellor

If Labour leader Ed Miliband has a single, overriding problem, it comes in the embodiment of his Shadow Chancellor of the Excchequer, Ed Balls.

As a former Secretary to the Treasury -- charged with heloing manage Britain's public finances -- Balls had a direct hand in the profligacy that has led to the current state of the UK's finances.

Yet he has the temerity to stand as Shadow Chancellor, even as he continues to avoid admitting his part in the ballooning of Britain's public debt.

Terry Smith, the President of Tullet Prebon, has had enough. He says it's time for Balls to depart from Ed Miliband's shadow caucus.

“He is in total denial about the fact that Labour was running a deficit years before the financial crisis struck and seems to think that we can borrow and spend our way out of a crisis caused by excessive debt,” Smith declared. "There is no avoiding the fact that Labour ran a growing deficit from 2002 as the economic boom was heading towards its peak”.

Smith charges that Balls, as well as Gordon Brown and those others tasked with keeping Britain's finances on the rails, put political expediency far ahead of responsible fiscal management.

“Moreover, the government spending which led to this deficit before the banking crisis struck was wasteful, unproductive and cynically aimed at buying the loyalty of a growing dependent section of the population to the Labour Party,” Smith continued.

Ed Balls wasn't the only thing on Smith's mind. He also declared the pensions owed to public service employees to be unviable, and suggested they should be cut back.

"Unviable because we cannot sustain a system in which people can retire and live for another 20 years at the expense of the state,” he explained. “This was never the intention of the original social security systems and it has been made unviable by improvements in health care and life expectancy.”

Smith has presented Ed Miliband with some difficult choices. Certainly, labour unions will never tolderate a Labour leader who pushes back against their unsustainable pensions. Certainly, the left wing of the Labour Party will bristle at Ed Balls being relieved of his duties.

Smith suggests that Balls should be shuffled to the most junior shadow cabinet post in existence. Ed Miliband would be better off shuffling Ed Balls out of politics altogether.

Balls, and his allegiance to the unions, are relics of an old left-wing politics that has catastrophically failed in Britain. If the Labour Party is to survive -- and its survival is far from guaranteed -- they will need to find a new brand of left-wing politics that can account for and repair the damage done by Ed Balls and his associates.

Stephen Hanks Shows Who He Is

2011-09-29T09:00:00.001-06:00

Can Herman Cain Break the Democrats' Hold on the Black Vote

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000-06:00

Cain boasts black appeal amidst talk of "brainwashing"

Accusations of black-on-black racism against Republcian Presidential hopeful Herman Cain may only be a matter of time.

In an interview with CNN, Cain suggested that black voters had been "brainwashed" into voting for the Democrats.

"African Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Cain said. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."

There should be little doubt that many Democrats have been quietly worried about the prospect of a Cain nomination, as it would rob them of their ability to accuse their Republican opponent of racism. Right now, it's become their chief political tactic.

They could always resort to accusing Cain of being a black-on-black racist. While such racism does exist, it lacks the instant credulity many grant to accusations of racism against a white candidate.

At best, Cain can hope to merely be accused of having a condescending attitude toward black voters. Some will even attempt to claim Cian has lost any confidence in black voters.

But this is simply not true.

Prior to his CNN comments, Cain speculated that he may be able to claim one-third or more of the black vote if he manages to win the Republican nomination. Without the black vote commandingly coming on side for Obama, Obama's chances of winning reelection in 2012 would narrow considerably.

“The African-American vote, I am confident, based upon black people that run into, black people that used to call my radio show, black people that have signed up on my website to support me. I believe, quite frankly, that my campaign, I will garner a minimum of a third of the black vote in this country and possibly more,” Cain said.

Even the possibility of this must have Democrats running scared. They're already keen to insist that Cain cannot win the Republcian nomination, let alone the Presidency.

Faced with the prospect of losing their grip on the black vote, they'll pull out all the stops to make sure that can never happen.

"No Violence Was Had", He Says

2011-09-28T20:30:00.002-06:00

Does this not look like violence

Over the past few days, it's become increasingly difficult not to pick on Jim Parrot. Your not-so-humble author is trying, but Parrot is begging on the thunder.

Over the past few days, Parrot has been giddily obsessive over the recent visit to Vancouver by Dick Cheney. Speaking at the Vancouver Club, Cheney attracted the usual -- and in this author's honest opinion, not-entirely-unjustifiable -- outrage from Canada's left. 250 people showed up to demand his arrest.

Jim Parrot was one of them. This would be largely innocuous if not for a rather intriguing passage in blog post about it:

"No violence was had, although one middle-aged woman guest with a 50's perm that could cut glass got her purse caught in a camera as she wormed through the crowd. She yanked the purse with a violence that could only come from fear. She took a wayward swing at the poor camera guy. That was all I saw."

As it turns out, this comment is flagrantly false. Stunningly false.

Local 9/11 "truth"er Darren Pearson, at some point during the inevitable frenzy, saw fit to seize a Vancouver Club employee around the neck and throttle him.

Not so much as a mention of the assault -- immortalized in the form of photo evidence -- at Let Freedom Rain.

For his own part, Darren Pearson feels absolutely no shame for his assault on the unnamed Vancouver Club employee, who reportedly suffered minor injuries. In fact, Pearson has publicly stated that it was "fun" for him.

At a time like this one would even see fit to question the tenor of the pre-speech coverage at LFR, and ask whether it's fair to take a page out of the left's play book and ask if Jim Parrot himself had any hand in encouraging the assault. a blog post originally entitled "Leah Costello is cancer on Vancouver" (the title was since changed). Looking at how liberally Parrot has proven to be willing to spread the blame for "words of hate", it seems to his own standard bill. Other mentions of the Vancouver Club on LFR are too vile to be reproduced here -- which is really saying something.

At best, Jim Parrot needs to account for his claims there were no violence when some of those present saw fit to assail not club manager Leah Costello, not Dick Cheney, but club staff.

At worst, Jim Parrot should apply his own rhetorical habits to himself and ask if he could be blamed for encouraging the violence.

Given past dealigns with the Let Freedom Rain proprietor, one should expect neither.

Although, credit where credit is due -- Jim Parrot is right about one thing: the banana-throwing incident involving Wayne Simmonds isn't just "a lapse in judgment", it seems inconceivable to consider it anything but pre-medidated, especially when one considers the typical shortage of fresh produce at hockey games.

And it's entirely justifiable to be outraged over a homophobic remark directed at Sean Avery... but let's not forget Avery's own foray into on-ice racism.

Oilers fans -- and especially Georges Larague -- won't forget anytime soon.

So, What's the Deal With Canada's Reputation? Redux

2011-09-28T19:49:00.002-06:00

Apparently, the revelation that Canada has the best reputation in the world really bothers the far-left.

Really bothers them.

In an etching at Dr Dawg's kennel, John Cross has evidently taken umbrage at your not-so-humble author taking some time out to acknowledge the fact.

As it turns out, Cross expected that Canada would fare poorly in any attempt to measure and compare the global reputations of the world's countries. He was -- and still is -- one of the very Canada-bashers now absorbing a healthy dosage of crow.

Not that they aren't doing whatever they can to try to wriggle free of the ultimate implications of the results of the survey. Cross complains that, of all things, human rights was not featured as a subject of the survey. Apparently, in the mind of John Cross, that is some kind of game breaker.

As in so many things, Cross has apparently declined to acknowledge which way the global wind is blowing. In a world where the United Nations human rights council is populated by the worst human rights abusers in the world, it seems that human rights has become devalued as the currency of global morality.

This is very unfortunate, particularly for Canada. If the UN and its apologists had any sense of moral probity in relation to these important principles, Canada would be one of a couple dozen countries in the world considered eligible to chair that particular committee.

Unless one considers the myth of Omar Khard's torture -- for which there is no evidence -- or the myth of Canadian involvement in torture in Afghanistan -- again, for which there is no evidence.

Cross also commits a genetic fallacy in attempting to attack the source of the information used to compile the Reputation Institute's report. He claims that the survey used only respondents from G8 countries, but this is false. The report was compiled from responses from 42,000 respondents worldwide.

It's not at all unfair to keep in mind that John Cross is an individual who does exceedingly poorly with any facts that refute whatever popular far-leftist narrative he may be pushing at any given time.

His favourite seems to be that of man-made climate change, and it behooves a responsible thinker to remember that Cross has been an apologist for climategate, and invested considerable energy in propping up the long-disproven hockey stick model of climate change; a model long shown to have absolutely zero scientific merit, and was reached through omitting an entire time period.

So, yeah. John Cross and evidence. Not really bosom buddies.

Which is the amusing thing about it all. Cross and his cohorts in Canada's far-left have obsessively insisted that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been allegedly-disastrous for Canada's global reputation.

What they've never offered is the evidence. Never offered any evidence that Canada's global reputation is suffering; never offered any evidence that it's because of Stephen Harper.

And now that it's been shown that Canada's reputation has suffered no less than each and every country governed by the kind of welfare state government they want Canada's to emulate, they're all-too eager to simply dispense with the evidence, even if they know deep down that they can't.

Deep down, John Cross simply must know that he can't sweep this one under the rug, although it is amusing watching him try.

Britain Can't Afford Any More PFIs

2011-09-28T10:00:00.001-06:00

Britain can't afford any more debt

Writing in an op/ed in The Guardian, Colin Cram demonstrates a very real gift for missing the point.

Writing on the topic of Private Finance Initiatives, Cram questions the critical attitude of the current Conservative Party government toward PFIs.

For the uninitiated, Private Finance Initiatives were largely used by Labour Party governments to hide billions of pounds in public spending effectively off the national books.

Cram writes:

"The criticism of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) being levelled by some government ministers is ironic in that it was introduced by the previous Conservative government.

Norman Lamont was chancellor of the exchequer at the time, closely followed by Ken Clarke, under whom the initiative prospered. As Professor Colin Talbot points out, PFIs were created to address a very big and real problem.

When in opposition in the 1990s, the Labour party was critical of the initiative, expressing some similar concerns to those of some of today's government ministers. However, when Labour came to power, it realised that if it wished for infrastructure improvements to schools, roads, prisons and hospitals, for example, it had little option but to adopt it. It therefore re-badged the scheme the Private Public Parternship (PPP) and accelerated its use."

Apparently Cram has failed to discern even the most basic distinction: the Labour Party opposed the use of PFIs while they were in opposition, then promptly set to using them while in government. The Tories opposed PFIs while in opposition, and maintained that opposition while in government.

And there's a very good reason for them to reject PFIs:

Britain simply can't afford any more debt. As of July 2011 the UK's public debt was 61.4% of its GDP. If the government were to expropriate everything produced on the Isles this year to pay down the public debt Britain would not be able to feed its population.

Cram goes on to suggest that PFIs had given Britain more up-to-date hospitals, schools, and other public assets than otherwise would have been possible. But this is actually flagrantly untrue. If anything, PFIs simply gave the British government a means to escape accountability for running up the public debt.

Any of the goals accomplished by PFIs -- such as attracting private investment in public assets -- can be done better under a system that doesn't serve to evade public accountability.

Colin Cram shouldn't be criticizing the David Cameron government for discarding PFIs as a means of funding public projects. They should be commended for it, and any philosophical contradictions are purely of Cram's own imagination.

Dave Coles Sucks and Blows

2011-09-28T09:00:00.000-06:00

Herman Cain vs Morgan Freeman, Left-Wing Intellectual Laziness & Tea Party Racism

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

With the 2012 Republican Party primary elections dawning ever-nearer on the horizon, it's a charge one can expect to hear more and more often from an increasingly-unimaginative left:

Tea Party racism.

It's a mantra that dwells on the surface of the American left-wing psyche as their President leads the United States deeper and deeper into an economic morass, and as they find themselves increasingly bereft of any new ideas.

Looking for a way out of what seems like an inevitable defeat in November 2012, their imaginations will continually bring them down to what has been and remains their last, best hope. Charges of Tea Party racism.

In the past, they've come from such "luminaries" of the entertainment world as Janeane Garofalo. This time they're coming from someone far more talented and far more accomplished. Morgan Freeman's talents don't lend credulity to his accusations any more than his accusations diminish his talent.

"Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term," Freeman insisted. "What underlines that? Screw the country. We are going to do ... whatever we can to get this black man outta here."

"It is a racist thing," Freeman continued. "It just shows the weak, dark underside of America. We're supposed to be better than that. That's why all those people were in tears when he was elected."

Freeman apparently hasn't stopped for so much as an instant to consider the fact that the Tea Party opposes President Barack Obama because they disagree with his politics as if it were even a possibility.

But with the left unable to conjure any more than a handful of examples of Tea Party racism -- and always among individuals who either dwell on the periphery of the movement, or who are promptly banished forthright -- these are arguments that simply don't carry any credibility.

Herman Cain is a black man. But he isn't buying it.

He simply notes that Morgan Freeman has never been to a Tea Party event. His experience with the Tea Party movement has indicated the precise opposite of Freeman's comments.

"They know I bring my message from my heart and from my head, and they're responding to it," Cain declared.

In fact, it's Cain's success in front of Tea Party crowds that is more threatening to Morgan Freeman's narrative than anything. And it's likely one of the reasons that the left is determined to believe that Cain cannot win the primary election, let alone a 2012 showdown with Obama.

They're foolish to count Herman Cain out, and doubly foolish to do it merely to preserve what is a low-road political narrative in the first place.

So What's the Deal with Canada's Reputation?

2011-09-27T18:04:00.000-06:00

Canada most reputable country in the world according to global poll

Since 2006, it's been a familiar siren song from the left to Canadians, trying to lure voters away from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party:

"Harper is destroying Canada's global reputation. And we -- the Liberal Party, NDP, or whomever else -- are the ones to restore it. Please vote for us."

Harper has now been in power for more than five years. And these complaints about the effect Stephen Harper's tenure in 24 Sussex Drive have turned out to be nothing more than pure, unmitigated bullshit.

In a study that measured the public esteem, trust, admiration and good feelings toward 50 countries, Canada came out on top. Number one. The best country in the world in terms of its global reputation. The survey was run by the Reputation Institute.

Canada is regarded better than Sweden, Australia, Switzerland, or New Zealand. Most of these countries have had leaders far more of the sort preferred by those citing imaginary harm done by Harper to Canada's reputation.

No one should expect many of these people to wake up and smell the global rejection of this narrative. Some of them just don't get it at all.

No one should be surprised. These are people who prefer to smirk about a preachy lecture delivered to Harper regarding the Kyoto protocols by countries who stood to be fiscal beneficiaries of the treaty at the World Economic Forum in Davos to the standing ovation he received at the same event.

These are people who focus on the handful of far-left whackos protesting the oilsands over the countries and businesses lining up to be oilsands' customers, and the millions of people who consume oilsands oil.

What's the deal with Canada's reputation? Canada's reputation is excellent. Five years of Stephen Harper hasn't done the kind of harm the far-left has bemoaned at every opportunity.

This revelation actually changes nothing: the far-left will still continue to make this claim, and Canadians will continue to do the appropriate thing: and ignore them.

Creepy Little Bastard Joe McGinniss Can't Keep His Tabloid Stories Straight

2011-09-24T17:14:00.000-06:00

Joe McGinnis, no longer a respected, reputable journalist, can't keep his story straight. First he claims supermarket tabloids used him as a source, then later admits he used the National Enquirer as a source.

In other news, none other than Sarah Palin's brother was cited as a source in McGinnis' book, but was never actually spoken to by the author. He's even declared that anything attributed to him by McGinniss was a lie.

It says more than what anyone needs to know about the journalistic integrity of McGinniss' work. More specifically, the lack thereof.

The Gory Underside of the Arts Communities' Oppression Fantasies

2011-09-24T16:46:00.001-06:00

As various individuals purporting to represent Canada's arts community attempt to monopolize more and more media time with staged scandals and contrived outrage, it's becoming more and more clear that many Canadian artists seem to be both prone and eager to imagine themselves as an oppressed community in Canada.

The most public examples have been self-appointed "martyrs" Margie Gillis and Franke James. The former averaged more than $90,000 a year in arts grants over a 13-year period between 1998 and 2011. The latter is apparently outraged that the federal government chose not to fit the bill for her to take her mediocre anti-oilsands art on a self-lionizing tour of Europe.

But as it pertains to the tendency of some Canadian artists to imagine themselves as an oppressed minority, James and Gillis are but the tip of the iceberg.

An interesting case study is that of a band calling itself Trike. Originating from Vancouver, Trike now mostly plays in Europe.

In 2009, Trike announced they were going to stay in Europe. They haven't been missed.

They also apparently didn't lose interest in Canada. In July 2010, they uploaded a music video to YouTube entitled "Get Out, Get Out".

It's amazing that something like this could fester, largely unnoticed, on YouTube for more than 14 months.

The first thing that stands out about the video is the song. The first thing that stands out about the song is that, frankly, it's shit. God-awful shit. Irredeemable shit. Anyone who makes it past the 0:55 mark of the video should be applauded for their endurance.

After that, the next thing that stands out is the deranged nature of the video. While the two members of Trike drone on about murdering someone, someone wearing a hastily-constructed Stephen Harper mask smashes their keyboard and murders the band, stabbing them multiple times with multiple knives.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that the video is meant to suggest that Stephen Harper is killing Canada's arts community. Frankly, it's a comical notion.

In 2009, when the band announced its "exile" to Germany, they declared that Canada had become "anti-art".

“Canada is our home, but it’s going through a bit of a right-wing, bureaucratic, anti-art phase right now, which would make it next to impossible to live as artists.”

Those lacking the sense of entitlement that has come to afflict the Canadian arts know differently. Canada isn't going through an "anti-art phase", and no anti-art phase would be necessary to make it impossible for Trike to live off their art.

The banality and mediocrity of Trike's art is what does that. Trike can't live off their music not because Canada has become "anti-art", but because their music is just so goddamned awful.

The trinity figures of Margie Gillis, Franke James and Trike seem to bring an unsurprising reality to light: bad artists rely on government grants to keep them out of having to seek work in industries more appropriate for their talents... like fast food.

Bad artists also seem to rely on a shared sense of ideological vanity to make their art more marketable to those who share their political beliefs. In a video posted after the 2011 election, band member Xania Keane declares that she was considering moving back to Canada, but can't live in a country with a conservative government.

(She apparently hasn't taken note of Angela Merkel.)

Keane says she isn't coming back to Canada, and apparently expects people to care. It doesn't seem like many do. It all works out pretty well for Canadian music fans, who are now spared from having to be subjected to Trike's tripe.

Stupid People Shouldn't Play Hockey Historian

2011-09-23T12:52:00.003-06:00

There's something about Jymn Parrett -- known around these parts as Jim Parrot for his tendency to mindlessly repeat any line of bullshit a far-left demagogue instructs him to -- and hockey that seems to send his under-sized, under-powered mental locomotive off the tracks.

As was shown during the Vancouver Canucks 2011 Stanley Cup run -- which ended in disappointment for all Canadians, on far too many levels -- a bizarre obsession lies in Jim Parrot's psyche to politicize the game in all sorts of ways that don't reflect the reality of it.

For example, in the mind of this deranged individual, the horrifying story about Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds having a banana thrown at him in London, ON has become an opportunity to blame Prime Minister Stephen Harper for some alleged resurgence of racism in Canada.

Those who have paid close attention to race issues in Canada for what they are, as opposed to what they wish it would be know better. All proper-thinking Canadians wish racism was a thing of the past in Canada. But we know it is not.

Racism has never really gone away in Canada, as much as we wish it would. It seems worthy of note that the race indcident that most readily comes to mind during the 2011 federal election, in which Harper won a majority government, involved not a Conservative candidate, but a Bloc Quebecois candidate who declared that Quebeckers would note vote for Romeo Saganash because he's Cree.

Let's not for get that the Bloc Quebecois was essential to the power-grabbing coalition of socialists and separatists that people like Jim Parrot so readily favoured in 2008.

Parrot's logic is hardly befitting the word. It proceeds something like this: Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada. A racist incident occurred in London, Ontario. Ergo, Harper must be to blame.

Parrot pretends to be deeply concerned about this incident -- and perhaps truly is, even if he isn't at all legitimately concerned with the issues intrinsic to it. But can't even keep his hockey history straight.

He treats Boston Bruins forward Willie O'Ree as the pioneer for black players in hockey. This assessment is actually incorrect.

O'Ree played a total of 45 games in the NHL for the Boston Bruins -- not bad for the first black player to ever do so. But those fully familair with hockey history know of another man... a man by the name of Herb Carnegie.

Carnegie began his professional career in 1938, while O'Ree was but three years old.

In 1948 Carnegie was invited for a tryout with the New York Rangers. Although he was widely regarded as one of the best players in the camp, fit to crack the Rangers starting lineup, he was instead offered a contract to play with the Rangers' minor league affiliate. The contract was worth less than he was earning playing for the Quebec Aces.

Among his teammates with the Aces was none other than Jean Bealiveau, who would later remark that Carnegie was one of the best players he had ever played with. Considering Bealiveau played with legends such as Maurice "The Rocket" Richard, this is high praise indeed.

Msny believe that if Carnegie had accepted the contract offered to him by the Rangers that he would have played in the NHL long before Willie O'Ree. Unlike O'Ree, whose NHL output totalled 14 points, he also would have excelled.

But Carnegie should always be admired for one thing: he knew that his self-respect and dignity were worth more than the possibility of one day, maybe, playing in the NHL after prostrating himself in order to have done it.

Hearing Carnegie talk about it today, he is still clearly stung by the pain of having been denied the opportunity to play in the NHL, but he publicly expresses few regrets. The Rangers management of the day should have a few: it's not unreasonable to speculate that they could have won a Stanley Cup with Carnegie. Instead, the franchise would wait until 1994, when they beat -- who else? -- the Vancouver Canucks.

Carnegie's decision to keep his dignity is a triumph in itself.

That Jim Parrot would look to the mediocre Willie O'Ree over the spectacular Herb Carnegie as the luminary for black hockey players demonstrates that he's as out-of-touch with hockey history as he is out-of-touch with the issues at the heart of the Simmonds incident.

Simmonds is far from the only black hockey player in the modern era to experience racism. In one incident that comes to mind, Anson Carter -- whose career peak was a world championship-winning goal -- had a banana thrown at him during the 2004-05 NHL lockout... while he was playing as part of a team of touring NHL stars in Russia.

Simmonds, like Carter, like Carnegie, has opted to take the high road in this incident. Simmonds has opted to simply rise above the clearly-premeditated expression of hatred directed at him, and move on.

He's brought no personal agenda to the table; political, ideological, or otherwise.

If only Jim Parrot had opted to do the same thing -- instead of transforming the incident into a political smear -- he would be fit to comment on the matter. Sadly, he didn't, and unsurprisingly, he isn't.

Unfunny Leftist Comedian: Truth Doesn't Matter

2011-09-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

A Horrible Idea Whose Time Should Not Come

2011-09-21T08:00:00.001-06:00

Levac: Carbon tax "presently on the table"

In 2008, the federal Liberal party presented to Canadians a proposal that could have precipitated an economic disaster in Canada.

Pitched by Stephane Dion, cobbled together from an idea proposed by Michael Ignatieff during the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign, they called it the Green Shift. It was essentially a carbon tax paired with income tax cuts.

Yet the income tax "cuts" wouldn't reduce the tax burden on the average Canadian family. Shifted to industry in the form of a carbon tax, those cuts would come back to haunt Canadians in the form of higher prices for absolutely everything. As private businesses are not charities, they would inevitably pass their higher costs along to the consumer.

The best-case scenario was that Canadians would be no better off for indulging the Liberal Party's foray into utopianism. A likelier scenario is that the tax would have scared off foreign and domestic investment in Canada, ultimately leading to an economic collapse.

Now, with the 2011 Ontario election on the line, Premier Dalton McGuinty is considering setting Ontario on this very disastrous path.

With the green energy companies that were to be the feathers in McGuinty's cap failing one by one -- in some cases, failing to do much of anything but provide McGuinty with photo ops -- McGuinty is turning to the last alternative policy that he can to pander to environmentalists.

In an online chat, Dave Levac, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, has indicated that the McGuinty Liberals are already considering a carbon tax.

"It's being reviewed, and some of my colleagues are more enthusiastic about it than others," Levac declared. "There is a possibility that a carbon tax is on the table to evaluate, because it already is."

Levac noted that a carbon tax is not presently in the Liberal election platform. This is something of a meaningless detail; many of the things that were in the last Liberal election platform were not done. Many of the things that were done -- including the HST -- were not in the election platform.

Regardless of how sympathetic McGuinty is to a carbon tax proposal, he owes it to the voters of Ontario to not spring it on them as a post-election surprise. The time to tell Ontario voters precisely what manner of a carbon tax is on the table.

If the Liberals had learned from the failure of Canadians to fall for the proposals of their federal counterparts, the answer would be "none at all". Yet as Dave Levac has it, this is not the case.

A carbon tax would drive up the cost of literally everything an Ontario family consumes: housing, energy, groceries, everything.

Dalton McGuinty owes Ontarians the opportunity to use the 2011 election as a referendum on such a prospect. Whether or not he'll be forthcoming with Ontario voters remains yet to be seen.

Warren Kinsella & His Desperate Dog Whistle Politics

2011-09-19T19:33:00.001-06:00

As the Ontario provincial election seemingly tightens at the midway point of the election, Warren Kinsella is becoming more and more desperate.

It's actually rather ironic. Earlier in the campaign, "desperate" was his favourite word. He took to Twitter to declare the deseperation of the Tim Hudak-led Progressive Conservative Party.

Now, it's Kinsella and Premier Dalton McGuinty who are becoming desperate. But mostly Kinsella.

In a posting on his blog, Kinsella wails about the federal Conservative Party's treatment of a video taken at a barbecue Toronto Mayor Rob Ford held in July.

The guest of honour at the barbecue was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who spoke about the upcoming Ontario election, and rallied guests to support Tim Hudak in defeating the Liberal government of Ontario.

Harper spoke of the need for a conservative hat trick in Ontario.

Kinsella's desperation in raising this video becomes clear when one considers that this non-story first came up in early August and it is now late September.

Frankly, it is precisely that: a non-story. There is nothing reasonably controversial about this video. Unless, of course, one is a Liberal voter or war room worker.

It's reminiscent of a past story in which a left-wing partisan snuck a video camera into a Conservative Party event in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper revealed that -- *gasp!* -- he and his party were working toward winning a majority goverment.

The story was not only a non-story, it was non-news. Everyone knew that Harper and the Tories had been working toward a majority government. Harper coming out and saying so was threatening only to left-wing partisans. Treating a video in which he said what everyone already knew as if it were remarkable or scandalous was nothing more than blowing the left-wing dog whistle.

Harper's words simply alert Kinsella and the left-wing partisans he's counting on to something only they will perceive as dangerous.

Now, in the middle of an election campaign, Kinsella is offering up video of Harper saying he'd like to see a conservative government in Queen's Park. In other words, video in which Harper simply says what everyone already knows. Kinsella is simply blowing the left-wing dog whistle, and in his desperation he's blowing it hard.

It's certainly Kinsella's hope that Harper's "conservative hat trick" comment will scare NDP voters into the Liberal fold. Looking at the poll numbers, looking at the embarrassing incidents his party has fallen victim to, Kinsella knows, as many other people know, that this is his party's best hopes of holding onto even a minority government, let alone holding on to their majority.

As for the federal Tories' efforts to shut the video down, chalk that up to an effort to discourage left-wing activists from resorting to the creepy means of hidden cameras in search of "gotcha" non-stories.

For Warren Kinsella, desperate times seem to call for desperate measures.

David Suzuki Extinguishes His Own Credibility

2011-09-18T10:00:00.000-06:00

When the Ontario Liberal Party secured the endorsement of David Suzuki, they were so excited they went out and made an ad about it.

In it, Suzuki extinguishes what little remained of his own credibility. Gushing over Premier Dalton McGuinty's environmental record, Suzuki declares how excited he was when McGuinty promised to shut down Ontario's coal-fired power plants. He declares the promise to be "a big step" toward fixing Ontario's relationship with the environment.

The problem is that McGuinty made the promise, then promptly set about breaking it. In 2006, he promised to shut down those power plants by 2009. In 2009, he promised to shut them down by 2014 He might not be around to keep that promise in 2014. Even if he is, he probably won't.

Even McGuinty's vaunted green jobs accomplishments are fading, as green energy firms continue laying workers off. Adding to the comedy is McGuinty staging a photo op at a solar panel factory that had shut down production.

In other words, McGuinty's environmental record is not all rainbows and sunshine. It's actually piss-poor at best. All he's offering in the 2011 election is more of the promises he already broke. He'll never keep them.

It only makes sense that the Liberals would work so hard to establish themselves as good environmentalists. But Ontarians aren't stupid, and can spot a broken promise when someone makes it again. In their effort to brand themselves as the party for the environment, they've managed to counter-brand themselves as promise-breakers.

For himself, Suzuki has done worse. In attempting to brand himself the voice of environmentalism in the 2011 election, he's counter-branded himself as an unprincipled hack who offers the Liberal Party's broken promises up as if they were achievements.

He's definitively turned his back on his own credibility. He'll never be taken seriously again.

What (Some) Ron Paul Supporters Don't Get About the Constitution

2011-09-18T08:00:00.000-06:00

By now it's been seen and enjoyed by thousands of people on YouTube: a clip from National Geographic's Frontier Force in which a drunk driver hautily lectures Montana state troopers about the constitution.

After being put in the back of the police cruiser to be taken away, the man pronounces "Ron Paul 2012."

Whatever the constitution has to do with this individual driving while his blood alohol content is four times over the legal limit is something that the driver himself probably doesn't know. He's just that drunk.

But in the midst of his ramblings, the drunk slurs something that might give one pause to consider just how well this individual understands the US constitution at all. He declares, "constitution! Read it and... live by it."

Reading too deeply into it given the level of inebriation of this man may be a mistake. But it could be interpreted as a sign that this individual, for all his devotion to the constitution, doesn't understand it.

Simply put, the constitution is not actually a code for its citizens to live by. It's a code for a country's government to govern by. While there are numerous bodies of law by which the power of the state is used to bind citizens, the constitution is the body of law by which the power of citizens is used to bind the state. It simultaneously grants the government powers and limits them. It simultaneously assigns the state responsibilities and limits them as well.

The US constitution, specifically, is preoccupied with the freedom of its citizens. The US constitution actually offers no comment on how citizens should live their lives; rather, it grants them the freedom to do it as they will.

There's no reason to definitively believe that this individual really believes one should live by the constitution. There's also no reason to definitively believe that there are no Ron Paul followers who do not hold this belief.

It's likely a belief that Ron Paul himself would reject. Even so, there's some cause -- however slim -- for Americans to be concerned about such notions among his followers.

The Value of a Vote in Ontario? No Less Than $730

2011-09-17T12:39:00.001-06:00

Ontario Liberals crassly trying to buy votes

Students in Ontario following the ongoing provincial election were recently alerted to a remarkable fact:

To the Liberal Party of Ontario, their vote is worth money. So much so that Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal Party are willing to blatantly buy their votes for anywhere from $730 to $1600 per year.

In a mass email sent out to University of Windsor students, someone working on behalf of the Liberal Party spammed in favour of the party's proposed education policy. The specific language of that email lays out in no uncertain terms how the Liberal Party is appealing to these students:

"So [the Liberal Party] are going to support all middle-class Ontario families with a 30% across-the-board post-secondary undergraduate tuition grant.That means - every year - the families of five out of six students will save $1600 per student in university and $730 per student in college.

Neither the NDP nor the Conservatives have an education plan - nothing! Shame on the NDP and the Conservatives for not caring about students, higher education, or the future of Ontario.

We are in battle for our future and you get to help make the choice on October 6th, 2011. As many of you may know, we are currently in a provincial election. On one side there are the NDP and the Conservatives who want to take Ontario off track - cutting healthcare, education, and destroying jobs.

On the other side, there is the Ontario Liberal Party, who is fighting to ensure that we continue to have the best education in Canada, the strongest healthcare, and that we create jobs for everyone. We need to stay on the right track because our future depends on it.

PS. If you are in 4th year and don’t think this amazing policy will apply to you - think again. By voting Liberal, every student will receive half the amount in January - that is $800!"

To describe a blatant vote-buying scheme as an education plan is beyond facetious. It lacks any kind of insight into what is continuously driving up the costs of post-secondary education across Canada and certainly lacks the foresight to address those issues.

Instead, it simply promises to send a government cheque to university students once a year, every year, until the next election. That means that the Liberal Party has offered to buy the vote of post-secondary students for anywhere ranging from $2,920 to $6,400.

And all of this without ever having addressed, or even attempted to solve, a single problem related to the cost of post-secondary education. Finding ways to reduce the costs of providing post-secondary education in the first place would solve this problem once and for all. The Liberals' proposed policy simply shifts the costs away from the student to the taxpayer.

Any political party that respects taxpayers and aims to spend tax dollars responsibly would be absolutely ashamed to have put such a crassly irresponsible and flagrantly self-interested policy forward.

It's political bribery at its finest, and desperation from a party for whom the poll numbers are not what they're telling people they are.

Brian Topp & the NDP: Not On Your Side

2011-09-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

Topp-led NDP would do what's good for them, not what's good for Canada

Anyone who pays even passing attention to the NDP has noticed it: their penchant for divisive politics.

They delight in drawing sides among Canadians, then telliing as many as possible that the NDP is on their side, and that their political opponents are not.

Yet if you live in the provinces of BC, Alberta or Ontario, the NDP is unequivocally not on your side... or at least they won't be, if Brian Topp -- so far the only declared candidate for the NDP leadership -- gets his way.

Topp has already declared that the NDP will staunchly oppose any additional seats in Parliament for Alberta, BC or Ontario unless Quebec recieves a proportionate increase of its own. This despite the fact that Quebec is already disproportionately represented on a scale greater than anywhere else in the world.

Topp's justification for sticking the 61% of Canadians that are underrepresented in Parliament is rather bizarre: because Parliament recognized Quebec as a distinct society within Canada, it's entitled to be overrepresented.

“The national legislature … has recognized the province of Quebec as a nation within the country, a resolution that was supported by all parties, and this is an occasion where it’s time to think about what that resolution means,” Topp declared.

It isn't hard to figure out what that motion means. It doesn't require extensive reflection. It may mean that Quebec is distinct within Canada, but it doesn't mean that it's above the rest of Canada.

Sadly, many of the NDP's hardcore supporters will back Topp's opposition to equitable democracy in Canada even thought it's vastly democratic. They even manage to offer some supremely dumb reasons: some will even declare that in opposing the addition of more seats in Parliament, they're fighting in favour of small government (not realizing that there's a difference between Parliament and the government).

Some oppose the addition of these seats believing that too many of them -- particularly in Alberta -- will fall to the Tories. For these people, their motivation is crassly partisan.

In Brian Topp's case, he's merely shamelessly pandering to Quebec at the expense of the rest of Canada. After all, it wasn't BC, Alberta or Ontario that delivered a mass of new seats to the NDP in the last election. It was Quebec.

In pandering to Quebec, the NDP is only doing what's good for itself. The NDP's merely doing what the NDP does best: putting itself first, and Canada second.

Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over

2011-09-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

Republicans Breech Another Democrat Stronghold

2011-09-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

Bob Turner wins Anthony Weiner's seat in New York

Start spreading the news.

Although the Democrats felt invincible following the 2008 election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, they have instead become a remarkably frail party. In addition to a defeat at the polls in the 2010 midterm elections, they've also lost their grip on some key stronghold seats.

First, it was Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat, won by Scott Brown after Kennedy's passing. Now Anthony Weiner's former seat in the House of Representatives, claimed by Bob Turner in a special election following Weiner's resignation over a sex scandal.

Turner promptly described his victory as a message to President Barack Obama.

“We’ve been asked by the people of this district to send a message to Washington,” Turner announced. “I hope they hear it loud and clear. We’ve been told this is a referendum. Mr. President, we are on the wrong track. We have had it with an irresponsible fiscal policy which endangers the entire economy.”

If this special election truly was a referendum on Obama's Presidency, it's bad news for him indeed. And it accompanies news every bit as bad.

Obama's job approval rating has sunk to its greatest low, just as his job disapproval rating has reached its highest peak. 55% of Americans disapprove of the job he's been doing. Only 48% think of him as a strong leader.

Now, as Nancy Pelosi looks across the House of Representatives with the arduous task of pushing Obama's agenda forward, she'll be seeing one less Democrat pushing with him and one more Republican pushing back.

All this while Obama tries to figure out how the hell he's going to get reelected in 2012.

The news is in for President Barack Obama. And the news is bad; very bad, indeed.

The Pro-Abortion Lobby Undermines... Itself

2011-09-13T14:06:00.000-06:00

ARCC defends infanticide law

For decades, it has been a staple argument of the Canadian pro-abortion lobby when resisting any idea that the unborn may have rights: the idea that unborn children are not legally considered "human beings" until they have emerged alive from the birth canal.

Now, in the horrific case of Katrina Effert, the pro-abortion lobby seems to have dispensed even with that argument.

In 2005, Effert, then aged 19, gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom of her parents' home. She promptly strangled the child with her underwear and threw it over a fence into her neighbour's yard.

The boy never had a name.

In a truly disturbing ruling, Justice Joanne Veil referred to Canada's lack of abortion laws, and decided that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childrbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support."

She issued a three-year suspended sentence for infanticide. Effert will not walk entirely free, but will not do any further jail time.

Many people are outraged at this decision, and justifiably so. The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, however, have reacted to the increasing numbers of wary eyes being cast toward Canada's lack of abortion law by suggesting there are good reasons for infanticide to be considered a lesser crime than murder.

As is typical of the pro-abortion lobby, they're refusing to answer any questions about what those reasons might be.

In light of the ARCC's dedication to the law defining legal personhood in Canada -- they cite it in their talking points opposing the Unborn Victims of Crime Act -- one would suspect that the ARCC should admit that using Canada's abortion law status quo to justify this decision is deeply troubling.

Instead, they're pushing for more, and advancing an argument that recently-born children should be considered lesser persons, with lesser rights, than those not-so-recently born.

It isn't enough for them that the unborn have no rights. They now seem bound and determined to justify extending fewer rights to those who already meet the law's ill-conceived definition of legal human personhood.

The fact that the infanticide scenario only strengthens many of the arguments of the anti-abortion lobby seems entirely lost on the ARCC. Perhaps deliberately.

If the pro-abortion lobby refuses to accept adoption as an alternative to abortion, perhaps they would at least accept adoption as an alternative to murder? Frighteningly, apparently not.

There's little question that Katrina Effert was in a deeply disturbed state of mind following this childbirth, and that her actions clearly reflect that. In light of this, even if Effert doesn't belong in prison -- she likely doesn't -- she should have been remanded for the necessary psychiatric care, provided she hasn't received it already.

Using Canada's lack of an abortion law to justify treating her unnamed baby boy as less worthy of justice, however, is a decision that absolutely cannot be justified. That the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada would fail to recognize this simply reveals them for what they truly are: manical pro-abortion zealots.

Whitewashing the Evils of the Cultural Revolution

2011-09-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

Jason Unruhe has already demonstrated he doesn't understand the difference between "Islamicism" and "Islam". But that was just him getting warmed up. In a return engagement, Unruhe tries to whitewash the atrocities committed by Mao Tsetung during the Cultural Revolution.

He describes it as a "debate". Unbelievable.

Saskatchewan NDP Already Making Excuses For Losing

2011-09-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

Orange getting ready to be crushed in SK

In Becoming Holyfield, multi-time World Heavyweight Champion Evander Holyfield offers an intriguing insight into the behaviours of boxers who know they cannot win a big match:

They give themselves an excuse to win.

Holyfield even attributed the infamous ear-biting incident to this particular behaviour: Mike Tyson giving himself an excuse for having lost.

With pre-election polls in Saskatchewan indicating that, barring a miracle, serious gaffe, or major political scandal, the Saskatchewan Party will win a dominating victory in the coming 2011 provincial election, the NDP is already looking for it's excuse for losing.

Regina-Dewdney MLA Kevin Yates has decided on his excuse: blame attack ads from the Saskatchewan Party undermining NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter.

“This is how the right-wing does things," Yates complained. "I don’t think it would have mattered who the leader is, they would have gone after the leader. The tactics might have been a little different but that’s what they do."

Yates complained that the ads were unfair. He's obviously banking on voters forgetting about the deliberately deceptive attack ads the NDP has been running, featuring fabricated quotes cast ridiculously out of context. How Yates says the right-wing does things is not all that different from how the left-wing does things.

Other than Yates, other NDP candidates and activists seem to be quietly admitting defeat, and focusing on making it as small a defeat as they can.

Saskatoon-Nutana MLA Pat Atkinson will not run in the 2011 election. This grants her a great deal of freedom to speak openly about the NDP's prospects in the coming election.

“There is no question we are in a battle to maintain the seats that we have. But I think it’s important that the NDP do well enough so that the government has an Opposition that can be effective,” said Atkinson, formerly Minister of Finance. “It appears as though Brad Wall is going to be re-elected ...we usually give a government two terms. The important thing will be to have an effective Opposition.”

(Noting that Saskatchewan often gives governments at least two terms seems to smack of another excuse, even if it seems more gracious.)

“Brad Wall is a very popular guy," Atkinson conceded. "There’s no question about that. But does that mean you give him a mandate to do whatever he wants? I don’t think the public wants to do that.”

There is little question that Saskatchewan would be better off with a strong opposition than a weak one. But with the NDP pulling some boneheaded blunders and seemingly conceding the election, they'll have great difficulty electing that kind of opposition.

Brad Wall will continue to be a great Premier of Saskatchewan -- far better than Dwain Lingenfelter could hope to be -- the NDP is already doing enough to ensure that.

A Confusing Brand to Embrace

2011-09-12T10:00:00.000-06:00

When going into an election, one would expect that there is an incentive for politicians to be on their best behaviour.

The Saskatchewan NDP, however, has not been on their best behaviour. They've been closer to their worst. The party got itself into hot water in July when it released a radio ad featured a heavily-edited quote. The quote was not merely heavily-edited -- the new favourite defense of the far-left when they are caught red-handed behaving poorly -- it was heavily-edited to the point of sheer dishonesty.

A comment made in response to a question about the tactics used by a public service union during a strike was presented as a comment about how Premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party feel about helping working families confront higher cost of living.

"I don't really care. We're not going to do it, and they're coming back to work."

When considers the extent of the warping and twisting of context in the presentation of this quote, there's really only one reasonable conclusion: the NDP lied. They made a decision to lie to the people of Saskatchewan, and turned out to be not all that good at it.

In response to the revelation that the NDP took Wall's comments bizarrely out of context and then altered them, the NDP is refusing to budge. They insist that the comments accurately reflect Wall's attitude toward working families.

They have nothing to support those claims, but they make them nonetheless. It's just what they do.

Now the Saskatchewan Party has released an ad highlighting the NDP's blatant attempt to deceive the people of Saskatchewan. The intent of the ad is very clear: they're seeking to brand the NDP as liars.

Bizarrely, the NDP has not only chosen to embrace that brand, they've sought to counter-brand the Saskatchewan party as childish for objecting to the NDP's lies. Naturally, they say nothing at all about their own childishness in lying in the first place.

Polling numbers indicate that the NDP is going to get creamed in the 2011 provincial election. There will be no orange crush. Instead, the orange will be crushed. Considering they have a leader who owes the people of Saskatchewan his resignation for approving this ad in the first place, they deserve much, much worse.

Blue Scare Alert: Harper Not"Reviving Nazi Fascism" but Maoist Fascist Says He Is

2011-09-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

It's ON

2011-09-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

CAW President sounding the alarm of a blue scare

There's a provincial election, and it's getting serious.

How do you know an election is getting serious in Canada? When union leaders start sounding the alarm and calling for strategic voting. There's a blue scare afoot, and Canadian Auto Workers President Ken Lewenza intends to make it as scary as he possibly can.

"We're asking our members to get politically involved," Lewenza announced. "Look at the campaign and ask yourself... who represents your community and your household the best. I think (people will see) the alternatives are clear. We can't waste our vote on a third party candidate that could split the vote and allow a Tory to win."

Like Buzz Hargrove before him -- Hargrove was kicked out of the NDP for encouraging strategic voting during the 2005-06 federal election -- Lewenza has chosen to back away from being an NDP stalwart, and instead encourage members of his unions to blindly vote againt Tim Hudak and the Conservative Party.

"We marched the New Democrat line," he continued. "We thought, ‘this is our party,' but today we have to be more proactive. You have to think strategically to avoid a disaster... If I had it my way, I would try and convince the New Democrats and Liberals to form an electoral coalition so they're not knocking each other off."

Apparently, the prospect of a Conservative government in Ontario is so scary that Lewenza would, if he could, beat his head against the wall trying to convince the Liberals and NDP to work together to defeat them. He chooses to ignore the correlation between banging your head against the wall and headaches by blaming his headache on the Conservatives.

The Conservatives, it seems, aren't prepared to blindly commit themselves to further economic stimulus, even in the wake of a slowly-recovering Ontario economy. Lewenza would really like it if someone would.

"Even though some would suggest Ontario has recovered on a per capita basis... the fact of the matter is that most jobs being created are part-time and precarious in nature," he declared. "Government intervention in jobs is important."

The detail that the billions of dollars already doled out by the federal and Ontario governments has led to jobs that Lewenza considers "precarious" seems to have little impact on his assessment of it. He somehow thinks more of the same would somehow turn out differently.

Perhaps there's even more to it than that. Lewenza would clearly prefer a government that would bow to the demands of unions over the demands of the rest of Ontarians.

"Even though [labour unions] represent 30 per cent of the Ontario population, we influence 100 per cent of some of the public policy issues on things like minimum wage, pensions and health care," Lewenza added. "People are going to have to be reminded that if there's an aggressive challenge against the labour movement, it normally results in more lost time off work."

Hudak, it seems, is not that leader. He's willing to consider the views of people other than labour union leaders.

"We know the history of Mr Hudak in cabinet with [former Premier Mike] Harris," Lewenza recalled. "I remember it like it was yesterday. The first act Mike Harris introduced in the legislature was to dismantle legislation to allow workers to join a union harassment-free. They disbanded the wage protection program for workers."

In fact, Hudak voted with Harris for legislation that required secret ballot votes before a workplace could unionize, stripping unions of the ability to harass and intimidate workers who voted against unionization. It's no surprise that union leadership opposed such legislation.

The election in Ontario is getting serious. For Ken Lewenza, it's as serious as a heart attack. The prospects of a Progressive Conservative government threaten to undermine the disproportionate political influence of labour unions.

It's something that Ontarians should actually welcome. But Lewenza is too busy trying to make them afraid.

V for Victory, Peace Through Victory

2011-09-11T14:40:00.000-06:00

Today is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

10 years ago today, Al Qaida terrorists under the direction of Osama Bin Laden crashed two jet airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York City. They also crashed a jet airliner into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth airliner crashed into a field in Pennsylvania when passengers decided to take the plane back from the hijackers.

2,819 people were killed in the attacks. Fortunately, it was far short of the 10,000 suspected to have been killed within hours of the attacks.

The people of the United States, Canada, Britain and the civilized world were certainly afraid on the day of the attacks. But not too afraid to fight back.

Osama Bin Laden would not live to see the 10th anniversary of the attacks he directed. But he did live to see the full extent of the western victory over the fear he sought to plant in the hearts of the civilized world.

The civilized world should not be mistaken to mean only the western world. The attacks launched on the United States were meant not only to terrify citizens of the United States, but freedom-loving people around the world, including those in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran (among others).

He did live long enough to see the civilized world fight back: in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iran, in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya, in Syria, in South Sudan, and in countless other places around the world.

The fight for freedom certainly hasn't been definitively won anywhere. Even in places that now show so much promise, such as Egypt, there is still a chance that the forces of Islamofascism will exploit the efforts of the liberal (classical liberal, that is) activists who are throwing off the chains of oppression. There is still a chance they may simply be re-chained under someone else's brand of oppression.

It happened after the Iranian revolution, and could quite easily happen again.

But in the guise of Islamofascism -- something that should not be mistaken for Islam itself, but is rather a political perversion of Islam -- the world sees the kind of threat it has seen on occasion in the past: the kind of threat that simply must be defeated in order for peace to be possible.

It's been seen before. During the 1930s, in Germany, Adolph Hitler lead a political phenomenon so hostile to anything even resembling peace -- let alone a just peace -- that it had to be destroyed for peace to be possible.

Some, like Neville Chamberlain, attempted to placate that threat in the hopes of attaining peace. The more they attempted to appease Hitler, the more aggressive he became. Peace was only possible when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain, and stood up and declared that they would fight Hitler anywhere and everywhere they could.

In the process, he made the v-shaped finger salute -- v for victory -- truly iconic.

In the 1960s, the peace movement adopted the same gesture in order to demonstrate their devotion to peace.

Some have viewed this as a perversion of the "v for victory" gesture. They're not entirely correct.

Certainly, the peace movement can often be wrong about their pronouncements. For example, any peace activist who demands that the western world stop fighting the war on terror is not legitimately a peace activist. Their demands would result in a world in which radical Muslim terrorists would continue to attack the civilized world while the civilized world simply declines to fight back.

That is not peace.

In the case of Islamofascism, as with the case of Nazism and fascism before it, peace -- true, actual peace -- is only possible through victory.

On this, the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we must not allow ourselves to forget the example of Winston Churchill. We must win the victory against Al Qaida and the varied forces of Islamofascism so peace can be possible.

The Sheer Comedy of Margie Gillis

2011-09-08T15:28:00.000-06:00

"Iconic" interpretive dancer wants news network taken off the air

In the wake of the fevered response to Krista Erickson's June interview with "iconic" interpretive dancer Margie Gillis, an interesting subtext has emerged.

Canada's arts community -- despite enjoying millions of dollars in federal subsidies on an annual basis -- have convinced themselves that they are an oppressed group. And, like all self-imagined oppressed groups, they are now eager to re-invent themselves as the oppressor.

In a recent interview, Gillis -- who self-organized a boycott of Sun News Network's advertisers that has very clearly failed comically -- has suggested another "solution" to the Sun News Network "problem". She wants it taken off the air.

This is actually a more extreme position than her previous position, in which she and her cronies merely suggested that Sun News Network be ordered removed from basic
cable packages. Now she's calling for it to be removed entirely.

"I think the station should be taken off until they can prove that they represent Canadian values," Gillis declared in an interview with the Vancouver Observer.

Naturally, one would expect that Gillis would describe "Canadian values" within a very narrow set of far-left values. And it shouldn't be considered even remotely surprising that Gillis and her cronies would want to silence anyone who disagrees with them.

Amidst a plethora of Orwellian messages to her followers telling them to "be compassionate" and "stay human", Gillis has held her bruised ego up as a rallying point for all the emotionally-unbalanced artsy types who are enraged that she wasn't treated with what they consider the proper deference.

In order to keep that rage alive, Gillis is still pretending she's some sort of victim.

“It was just an attack,” Gillis said. “She just didn't care what I was saying … I've never done an interview where they don't come back on to say thank you very much. I sat there in this little room. Nobody came in, nobody came out and I sat there for about 10 minutes just going: wow, that was an attack.”

Then again, perhaps Sun News Network staff had already had their fill of Gillis by the 8:50 mark of the interview, when Gillis very obnoxiously began to speak over Erickson, reciting self-scripted remarks even as Erickson asks her to stop talking over her.

Gillis and her cronies continue to pretend that Erickson "constantly" spoke over her. Erickson had indeed spoken over Erickson in the interview -- to self-correct an error she had made. Comically, Gillis objected to Erickson correcting herself.

Ever since, GIllis has been using the interview, in which both interviewer and interviewee did their fair share of the dirty work in turning the entire affair awry, as a lightning rod for every Canadian artist who feels they're being oppressed if they can't live as well as a doctor or lawyer off of their work.

Now Margie Gillis wants to take up the role of oppressor for herself. It would be frightening if it weren't merely comical.

All Eyes on Elections Canada

2011-09-02T12:45:00.000-06:00

How Broadbent Institute treated in wake of scandal will speak to impartiality, credibility of EC

Eventually, Elections Canada was bound to get it right.

In the wake of an appeal by the NDP, to its followers, to donate money to the fledgling Broadbent Institute -- a think-tank which is so fledgling that it hasn't even been incorporated yet, which prevents it from accepting donations.

The NDP came up with a very simple solution: accept the donations, made in the memory of the late Jack Layton, on the think tank's behalf, and hold it until the institute is incorporated.

This turned out to be contrary to the Elections Act. Not only was it illegal for the NDP to accept these donations on the Broadbent Institute's behalf, it was actually illegal for them to solicit the information in the first place.

To its credit, Elections Canada, which turned a blind eye to the electoral fraud committed by the Ruth-Ellen Brosseau campaign -- they submitted nomination papers to the Elections Canada featuring signatures that had been falsified -- got this one right. They advised the NDP that it was unlawful for them to accept these donations.

However, there is still much to be seen about how well Elections Canada can be trusted to treat the Broadbent Institute impartially. The NDP has very clearly demonstrated a direct relationship between itself and the Broadbent Institute.

This should prohibit the Broadbent Institute from registering as a third party at election time -- acting essentially as an extension of the party, and potentially allowing it to exceed election spending limits either at the national level, or in individual constituencies.

The NDP may wish to pretend that the Broadbent Institute is completely separate from the party itself. These recent events have exposed that notion for precisely what it is: pure bullshit.

It's with this in mind that Elections Canada would be required to reject any third-party application from the Broadbent Institute come the 2015 federal election.

Whether or not they actually will seems far from certain, and remains to be seen. Elections Canada can expect to be watched very closely when it comes time to make that decision.

Is Libby Davies the Most Irresponsible MP in Canada?

2011-08-29T21:03:00.000-06:00

Davies resurrects Dhalla's pension bill

When running in a riding like Vancouver East, one can always bank on the appeal of additional welfare benefits for somebody.

In this vein, Vancouver East MP Libby Davies' most recent proposal is not actually a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. Unlike the idea's progenitor, Davies will likely not have to pay a price for the sheer irresponsibility of it.

Davies has resurrected a proposal by former Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla to pay old age pension benefits to elderly immigrants immediately upon arriving in Canada. The proposal, adopted as a blatant means of pandering to the immigrant community in her riding of Brampton-Springdale, instead angered her constituents. She was beaten by 10,000 votes in the 2011 federal election by Conservative Parm Gill.

Running in Vancouver East, Davies has found that no bit of far-left boilerplate, no matter how ridiculous or irresponsible, can fail her.

Precisely how irresponsible is Davies' most recent proposal? It's irresponsible to the tune of anywhere from $300 million to $700 million per annum, paid out to people who have never contributed a red cent to the Canada Pension Plan. Every year.

The sheer irresponsibility of it becomes crystal clear when one considers that as of 2006, the CPP was considered to be facing an unfunded liability of $620 billion.

This isn't the first time Davies has done something irresponsible for purely ideological or demagogical purposes. In 2009, Davies voted against a bill to impose a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for human traffickers who exploit children. Her reason was an ideological opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing.

Davies' Parliamentary motion calling on the government to open pension funds to recent immigrants -- currently there is a 10-year residency requirement, which is as it should remain, if not increase -- is merely the most recent in a long, sad history of demagogical irresponsibility from Libby Davies.

The Road to Jerusalem

2011-08-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Today, Jack Layton will be laid to rest.

Some may find it odd that sometimes a man's most vociferous critics may be the ones who admire them the most.

I won't pretend I respeceted or admired Jack Layton any more than anyone else.

Nor will I pretend that the long mourning period observed by Layton's followers hasn't been more than a little off-putting. Perhaps even as off-putting as John Diefenbaker's funeral.

But the long mourning period did give me the opportunity to do something that Christie Blatchford didn't do when she wrote her graceless -- but not altogether unjustifiable -- comments: think long and hard about it.

My thoughts continually take me back to the evening of May 2, 2011, when the Conservative Party won a majority government. In the middle of finding the bottom of a celebratory bottle of Jack Daniels, I took some time out to pray for Layton's health. It was actually the first time I prayed for a politician's health. Strangely, it was the first time I had actually considered praying for the health of a politician.

At the time, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

It was entirely natural that my thoughts when back to that when Layton announced that he was stepping back -- temporarily -- to fight a new cancer. Many media commentators could tell right away that there was good reason to be concerned.

Once again, I prayed for Layton's health. Sadly, those prayers weren't answered.

But it also occurs to me that I may have been praying for the wrong thing. I'm reminded of a tale Evander Holyfield related in his book, Becoming Holyfield, regarding the passing of his mother. She had been in a car accident, and arrived at hospital in a coma.

Trying to focus on his training, Holyfield asked a close spiritual advisor what he should do. He was told to pray for the right thing to happen.

Those who have experienced a family member passing away from cancer -- this author has witnessed two family members die of the disease, and has had four others successfully fight it off, the youngest at the age of two years old -- understand full well how painful fighting terminal cancer is. Sometimes, the cancer cannot be beaten. The best thing to hope for is a quick, painless, merciful passing.

The specific details regarding Layton's final days are not of public knowledge. This is as it should be. We don't know how much pain Layton was suffering before his passing. His friends and family do, and that's information best reserved for themselves.

I take some comfort in hoping that Layton's passing was a peaceful one, and in hoping that he didn't suffer.

If he did, I take comfort in knowing that his passing at least ended that suffering. And although I disagree with Layton's politics, I admire Layton's character, and firmly believe he's in a much better place now.

If Layton's passing ended a period of suffering, it was the right thing to happen. It's a sad thing nonetheless, but there's comfort to be taken from it.

Jack Layton has followed Tommy Douglas down the road to Jerusalem. There is no doubt in my heart that he arrived safely.

The Far Left's Bizarre Love of Mediocrity Strikes Again... and Again

2011-08-09T21:03:00.000-06:00

Canadian artist out to canonize herself as leftist cause celibre

It seems that, in Canada, if one really, really wants their 15 minutes of fame, one has to go out and get it themselves.

Since June alone, Brigette DePape, Kai Nagata and Margie Gillis have done everything they can to seize the imaginations of the Canadian left. In each case, each one was forgotten within weeks of their self-glorification.

DePape chose to spat on her job by holding up a "Stop Harper" sign during the 2011 speech from the throne. Her career as a leftist icon peaked with a job offer from Michael Moore that no self-respecting left-winger would actually take.

Interpretive dancer Margie Gillis appeared on the Sun News Newtork, then rallied her followers into petitioning the CRTC to order Sun News removed from basic cable packages. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council had enough of the whining of far-left gladflies, and said "no mas" very quickly. Gillis complained that interviewer Krista Erickson talked over her, when it was in fact Gillis speaking over Erickson.

Kai Nagata left his job as CTV correspondant for the Quebec National Assembly amidst complaints about how the national media selects political stories.

All were declared to be "inspirational" figures by the far-left -- somehow all of the far-left's figures are "inspirational" even when they're actually banal and mediocre.

That seems to be the case with artist Franke James, who has been her own best publicist, alleging that the Canadian government pressured sponsors of her planned European tour into withdrawing. She also complains that embassies that were planning to host her exhibit also pulled out, and that government funds for the tour were withdrawn.

Sources with the Swiss insurance company that was sponsoring the tour and the government have each since stated that the funds had never been promised in the first place.

This makes James not only the most recent far-leftist to attempt to canonize herself as a left-wing political icon, but the most recent to describe the government's decision not to supply funds that hadn't actually been promised as a "funding cut".

There may be one other reason why James' would-be sponsor chose not to support her tour. That reason is that her work is simply not very good.

That also sets James up for the next evolution of her ideological canonization: for a while, the far-left will ride the Franke James bandwagon. Then, shortly after, Franke James, every bit as forgettable as Brigette DePape, Margie Gillis and Kai Nagata, will be forgotten in favour of the next mediocre, self-serving "inspirational" figure.

The far-left will find someone new whose mediocrity they will love just as much as Franke James'. The far-left will again hold up that person's mediocrity as if it's excellence, and again Canadians shall yawn.

Think of it as part of the circle of life.

Nycole Turmel's Professionalism Problem

2011-08-08T15:17:00.002-06:00

Public service union bosses should reject partisanship

In Canada, there is a problem that public service unions refuse to admit is a problem; it's because it chiefly concerns them.

Canada's political discourse is far too often -- near constantly, in fact -- littered with partisan messaging on the part of public service unions. Under the leadership of now-NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel, the Public Service Alliance of Canada was one of these unions.

During the time Turmel was President of PSAC, the organization was endorsing Bloc Quebecois candidates. Turmel herself held memberships in the BQ and Quebec Solidaire, and was a self-described "activist for the NDP".

But in campaigning for the BQ, Quebec Solidaire and the NDP, Turmel essentially campaigned on who she thought her bosses -- or at least those of the members of the union she represented as President -- should be. It's incredibly improper, and the President of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada agrees.

“The professional institute is non-partisan and, when you become partisan - I am not going to speak about Ms Turmel per se - but when you display partisanship it impacts on your credibility,” Corbett mused.

“It is an issue for Ms Turmel,” he declared.

It would be a bigger issue for Turmel if she was still President of PSAC. Fortunately, she isn't.

The bigger question is whether the current leaders of PSAC can aspire to the higher standard of professionalism evident at PIPSC. It won't be hard to figure out if they do.

With Turmel occupying a high-ranking position with the NDP, a PSAC endorsement for the NDP will immediately fail the smell test. PSAC members and leadership will likely immediately excuse the funk, but it will give Canadian voters good reason to be concerned about the impartiality and professionalism of the public service.

Fortuantely, even though Nycole Turmel very clearly didn't care about this, Gary Corbett at least does. Hopefully current PSAC President John Gordon will aspire to Corbett's example, not Turmel's.

The Greatest Idea Whose Time Has Come

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

Britain must adopt Bill of Rights ASAP

Of all the facts about British politics not widely known to many outside of the UK -- and perhaps even to many within it -- is that the country lacks a comprehensive written constitution. It's the only democratic state that lacks such a document.

Britain has a constitution of sorts; in political science it's known as a British-style constitution, and they're commonplace throughout the Commonwealth. What this means is that the foundational law in Britain has written and unwritten components, formal and informal components.

It includes various statutes, privy council rulings, constitutional convention, and the rules of Parliament... among other components. But Britain's own constitution lacks what some would consider two key components: a formal bill of rights, and a formal written constitution -- which in the case of a British-style constitution basically amounts to an anchor law.

A formal bill of rights may finally be on the way. At the direction of the David Cameron-led coalition government, a commission considering the implementation of a bill of rights has been studying the subject.

As with so many things, it began amdist tensions with the European Union over the role of EU statutes within British law. In 2005, the European Union Court of Human Rights ruled that a British ban on prisoners voting was discriminatory. In February, British MPs voted to spurn that ruling.

This controversy has led to the formation of the commission, and the consideration of a bill of rights that would satisfy the European Convention on Human Rights, but would allow Britain the freedom to interpet that convention as it sees fit, rather than remain beholden to the EU court. In time, such a charter would be expected to replace the Human Rights Act.

Britain has long considered itself a leader in establishing the rights and freedoms of its citizens. The Magna Carta -- itself considered part of the anchorless British constitution -- was truly a milestone law in human civilization. That it has no formal bill of rights is a testament to the manner in which these rights and freedoms emerged in British law -- very slowly, over time -- but it's also been an egregious oversight.

The establishment of a British Bill of Rights is the greatest idea whose time came a long time ago. It's time for the UK to make it a formality by writing and passing a bill of rights as quickly as can be responsibly done.

The Ultimate End Game for No One is Illegal

2011-08-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

In Britain, the battle against Shariah law is intensifying.

In Wolfenstow, in East London, a group led by Anjem Choudary has set out to set up its very own Shariah law zone. They have even boasted that they've assembled vigilante groups to roam the streets enforcing Shariah law.

Among the prohibited activities in these zones are drugs, prostitution, gambling, alcohol, and music.

They've at least shown the courtesy of displaying posters declaring Wolfenstow to be a Shariah-controlled zone. Police, meanwhile, have promptly set to removing the posters everywhere they are put up. There is a law in London, and it is not Shariah law.

But if groups like No One is Illegal have their way, Shariah law in East London -- and around the world -- really will be unstoppable, as Choudary insists.

No One is Illegal has managed to remain obscure enough that their core beliefs remain a mystery to the vast majority of Canadians. But among them is the rejection of any idea of being a "good immigrant" and integrating into the societies they immigrate into.

In other words, No One is Illegal believes that people should be able to immigrate at will, then do as they will. So long as No One is Illegal can convince themselves that such people are not "colonizers", then everything is OK in their eyes.

For those paying attention to the group, NOII's response to this will finally clarify where they stand on the issues they themselves so eager racialize. If they stand up and declare that the clear colonizing tactics of these groups -- including the comically named "Muslims Against the Crusades", who are now waging a crusade of their very own.

If they declare the actions of this group to be acceptable, or failt to respond at all, it will be clear that NOII has a clear racial bias in the application of their own ideals; that only whites can colonize, even if individuals like Choudary will be far more unjust and oppressive than anything ever imagined by British settlers arriving in Canada.

No One is Illegal calls North America "occupied Turtle Island". What would their name be for an Islamic, theocratic Emirate established in Wolfentow? When one considers that their goal is for as many radical Shariah-backing Muslims to move about the world as wish to do so, perhaps it's entirely fair to consider it NOII's ultimate end game.

Nycole Turmel and the NDP's Achilles Heel

2011-08-02T22:57:00.000-06:00

NDP interim leader's history comes back to haunt her

With NDP leader Jack Layton's health having taken another turn for the worse, many Canadians are wishing him a speedy recovery and return to the political battlefield.

But certainly almost none more than his followers in the NDP. Now more than ever.

Although the NDP made a decision not to diclose interim leader Nycole Turmel's memberships in the Bloc Quebecois and Quebec Solidaire -- both separatist parties -- to the public, it turns out that the Globe and Mail found out anyway. What has emerged since are numerous questions about Turmel's loyalties.

With whom do her loyalties lie?

Turmel says she is not a separatist. Despite her membership in two separate separatist parties, that is enough for this author. As it turns out, there are many reasons than just her flirtations with separatist political parties to doubt her loyalties.

In 2006, while Turmel was National President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, PSAC endorsed a number of Bloc Quebecois candidates in the election.

“Bloc candidates are better prepared and more willing to cooperate with PSAC in furthering our causes,” PSAC declared during the 2006 election.

In the eyes of some, the detail that Turmel's and PSAC's endorsement of these BQ candidates was extended based on labour policy, not based on separatism, should allay any concerns about that endorsement. But those people are wrong.

That detail rather illuminates the detail that the organizations with which Turmel is involved -- whether by her hand or otherwise -- tend to develop a tendency to put their own agendas ahead of the interests of the country. That is a very disturbing thought. Unsurprising, but disturbing.

In the case of the Bloc, it's obvious: they put their agenda of separating Quebec from Canada ahead of Canada's interests. They also put Quebec's parochial interests ahead of Canada's on all issues. Turmel and the other so-called "soft separatists" who join the BQ know this full well.

In the case of PSAC, it's a matter of putting the interests of the union ahead of the country. It's bad enough that public service unions are permitted to make endorsements during election time in Canada -- effectively campaigning on who they think their bosses should be. It's that much worse that PSAC's position relating to these BQ candidates is that their bosses should be separatists. It casts a serious shadow over what PSAC has become.

Now, Nycole Turmel has -- however temporarily (one hopes) -- succeeded Jack Layton as the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. And whether it's considering her separatist dabblings or the bizarre activities of PSAC under her watch, there are too many reasons to doubt her ultimate loyalty, and not enough reasons to invest faith in her.

And the NDP knows it. That is the reason for their fuming, raging response to the Turmel revelation. The NDP response has ranged from comical attempts to portray Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a separatist to equally-comical description of the reporting of Turmel's history as "harassment".

(That the left -- including countless NDP-affiliated individuals and organizations -- went through Harper's history with a fine-tooth comb in search of anything they could misrepresent in order to fan the flames of fear is a detail they themselves now choose to omit. Turnabout is fair play. Remember that.)

Once the NDP has gotten over their rage and fury, the first thing they need to do is set about picking a new interim leader. Unless Turmel can come up with a good explaination as to why it is that she maintained her Quebec Solidare membership so long after cancelling her BQ membership, and even after becoming interim opposition leader, she needs to resign post-haste and let a responsible MP take over the job.

This time around the NDP should disclose, not conceal, the history of their interim leader. While they're at it, perhaps they can disclose precisely how many of their MPs have been, or are now, separatists.

Then they should take the appropriate action with the lot of them, and cast them out.

The NDP is, after all, supposed to be a federalist party. It's high time they started acting like one. Otherwise, they can't simply content themselves with getting angry at the people who choose to fire some metaphorical arrows at their exposed Achilles' Heel.

Barack Obama Playing Chicken With Reality

2011-07-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

If the US defaults, Obama will be to blame

At a time when the United States is facing an economic crisis which continually threatens to deepen, one would think President Barack Obama would have better things to do than play chicken.

He doesn't.

The bigger problem is that Obama thinks he's playing chicken with his Republican political adversaries. He isn't. He's actually playing chicken with reality.

As the prospects of a debt default looms, Obama is demanding a permanent increase of the legislated debt ceiling. Republicans are prepared to extend a temporary increase to stave off a default in August, but Obama is unwilling to accept that as a compromise.

On top of demanding a permanent increase to the debt ceiling, Obama also wants to increase taxes.

Never before has the core of Obama's fiscal policies been so clearly on display: borrow, tax, and spend. And if the Republicans refuse to go along with it, precipitate an economic catastrophe and try to avoid the blame.

There is little question that Obama alone is not responsible for the debt the US currently risks default on. Republican and Democrat administrations alike have spent irresponsibly for decades, running up the US public debt.

But Obama is the one in charge right now. He's the one who inherited the responsibility of ensuring the US' finances are mattered responsibly. That puts the onus on him to figure out what eh problems are, and accept the solutions proposed by Congress.

Simply put, the problem is not that Congress won't allow him to borrow as much as he'd like to. The problem is the spending. It doesn't take a master economist to figure out that one cannot solve a debt problem by taking on more debt. Nor can one solve spending problems by milking the economy dry for additional revenue.

It's a basic and fundamental lesson being taught by reality right now: the United States cannot afford to continue spending the way it has been. Nor can it afford to follow the Obamacare path into permanent profilgacy.

What Obama hasn't realzied is that, in this game of chicken, Obama cannot possibly win. If the Republicans refuse to accept his "compromise", the US will default. If the Republicans accept his "compromise", the US will careen into fiscal oblivion.

Barack Obama must stop playing chicken with basic reality immediately, vainly hoping his opponents will blink. If he declines to do so and the US defaults, American citizens should impeach him immediately.

"The $300,000 Woman" Sandra Ruch on the Cost of the Canada Boat to Gaza

2011-07-11T09:00:00.000-06:00

Ed Miliband and the "New Centre"

2011-07-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Labour leader politely tells Tony Blair to stuff it

In an interview with the BBC, Labour leader Ed Miliband has dismissed concerns voiced by former Prime Minister Tony Blair that settling on the left will doom the Labour Party to a future of electoral defeat. Blair has urged the Labour Party to move closer to the political centre.

Miliband disagress on what the centre is.

"Tony Blair is entitled to his view, I've had conversations in private which have been good conversations with Tony Blair but let me just say this - it all depends on where you think the centre ground is," Miliband said. "I'm absolutely a leader placing my party firmly in the centre ground but there's a new centre ground in our politics."

"The new centre ground, for example, that means you speak out on these issues of press responsibility, a new centre ground that says that responsibility in the banking system - which we didn't talk about enough when we were in government - is relevant, a new centre ground that says people are worried about concentrations of private power in this country when it leads to abuses," Miliband declared. "And that's the new centre ground."

As with so many things, the Labour leader is flat-out wrong. He's wrong in his preoccupation with countering "private power". Abuse of public is the far-greater threat.

Certainly, private power can lead to abuses. But there are already mechanisms within society to handle these abuses: criminal law.

But there are entirely too few societal mechanisms equipped to deal with abuses of public power. The greatest threat of abuse of public power in Britain has always been the Labour Party.

For evdience of this, one needs look no further than the saga of the Militant Tendency, a group that managed to seize tremendous influence within the Labour Party in the 1970s and 80s. A hardline Marxist group, the Militant Tendency demanded the "nationalization of the commanding heights of the British economy". They even managed to ram a policy resolution through the 1972 Labour Party convention.

It wasn't until former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock recognized the threat the Militant Tendency posed to British civil society that they were expunged from the Labour Party. If not for Kinnock's wisdom, the threat may have never been dealt with.

Some doubt that the modern Labour Party possesses Kinnock's wisdom. Much more recently, Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, and former Minister of the Environment, has warned that the Labour party has been infiltrated by radical Islamic groups that aim to re-establish Britain as a Muslim theocratic state governed by Shariah law.

Using state power -- also described as public power -- to force Britons to live under the tenets of Shariah law would be the ultimate abuse. Fitzpatrick seems to be convinced that the Labour Party isn't taking this threat seriously.

While Miliband may be more interested in milking the News of the World scandal for all he can get, and pretending that his party's experimentation with "tripartite" economic regulation, which routed Britain's ability to regulate the amount of debt assumed by British finanical instutitons, wasn't partially to blame for the economic meltdown, it's important to remember that it's the Labour Party's flirtations with tyranny that have been most destructive to the British polity.

Ed Miliband would prefer that Britons be concerned with what unethical journalists or reckless financiers are doing than what elements within his own party would do with the public power they so desperately covet. As long as they can describe themselves as "the left", Miliband may be truly blinded to their corrosive influence.

Rick Perry Is Running Out of Time

2011-07-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

Perry's choice comes with a choice for conservatives

Texas Governor Rick Perry could be a contender.

As the governor of Texas, Perry already has a leg-up on many other Republican presidential hopefuls. Texas is the largest Republican stronghold in the United States, and Perry has already demonstrated that he can win there. Moreover, Perry enjoys a very positive buzz among conservatives, many of whom are still waiting for the right candidate.

Perry could be a contender. But first he has to decide if he's going to run for President.

With only fifteen months to go until November 2012, and only seven months until the February, 2012 Iowa caucuses, Perry is at risk of losing the precious time needed to build his base outside of dedicated conservative circles and the state of Texas.

Many American conservatives are still waiting for what they deem to be a "true" conservative candidate. Mitt Romney has been judged to fall far short of the expectations of these individuals, and many of them look to Perry as someone who can both satisfy their ideological demands and defeat President Barack Obama.

Perry currently has an exploratory committee exploring Perry's prospects as a Presidential candidate.

But those waiting on baited breath for word from Perry need to consider two basic scenarios: the first is one in which Perry decides to run for President, even with no guarantees.

The second scenario is one in which Perry -- who is already secure in the Texas governor's office for another two years -- chooses not to run for President, and these individuals will have to learn to make do with the field of candidates making themselves available.

These individuals will need to learn a pivotal lesson from 2010: the perfect is the enemy of the good.

In 2010, many conservatives turned their nose up at Senator John McCain, judging him to not be a good enough conservative for them. The result as President Barack Obama, one of the worst disasters the United States has ever seen -- by nearly any measure.

If American conservatives decide to stay home on election day 2012 and the result is another term for Obama, they may have no one to blame but themselves, and their fellow conservatives may have nobody to blame but them.

It's not unreasonable to suspect that they may already be to blame.

These individuals should start preparing themselves now to make a difficult choice that may be foisted upon them: put their ideological vanity, or watch the disaster continue.